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LITERARY   LANDMARKS 


OF 


FLORENCE 


BY 

LAURENCE   HUTTON 

AUTHOR   OF   "  LITERARY   LANDMARKS  OF   LONDON  " 

"  LITERARY     LANDMARKS     OF     EDINBURGH  " 

"  LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF  JERUSALEM  " 

'*  LITERARY  LANDMARKS  OF  VENICE" 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1897,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 

All  rights  resemed. 


TO 

CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER 

MY   FRIEND 

IN     FLORENCE     AND     ELSEWHERE 

WHO  FIRST  ENCOURAGED  ME 

TO   STUDY 

THE  LOCAL   LANDMARKS 

OF 

LITERATURE 


332739 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


VILLA  LANDOR Frontispiece 

DANTE Facing  p.  4 

VILLA   PALMIERI "  IO 

DEATH-MASK  OF   DANTE M  12 

VILLA   GHERARDO "  l6 

SAVONAROLA "  24 

SAVONAROLA'S   CELL "  26 

MARTYRDOM   OF   SAVONAROLA "  3° 

GALILEO M  32 

GALILEO'S  HOUSE  IN  ARCETRI "  34 

GALILEO'S  STUDY "  3& 

PALAZZO   DELLA   SIGNORIA "  42 

LOGGIA   DEI   LANZI "  54 

TOMB   OF  WALTER   SAVAGE  LANDOR.      ...  "  58 

CASA   GUIDI  WINDOWS "  62 

MRS.  BROWNING'S  TOMB "  64 

CASA  BELLA "  66 

GATEWAY   OF  THE  ENGLISH  CEMETERY       .      .  "  7<> 


INTRODUCTION 


After  the  article  upon  which  this  vol- 
ume is  based  had  been  put  into  type  it  was 
carried  to  Florence,  where  it  was  carefully 
revised  and  not  a  little  elaborated,  many 
new  items  being  added  to  it  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  Mr.  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  Prof. 
Willard  Fiske,  and  others,  whose  local  and 
antiquarian  knowledge  was  of  great  value  to 
me.  It  contains  much  information  which 
does  not  elsewhere  exist,  in  any  collected 
form,  and  much  more,  which  is  the  result 
of  personal  research  and  observation,  never 
before  printed  in  any  shape.  In  the  cases 
of  Dante  and  Boccaccio,  especially,  I  hope 
that  I  have  succeeded  in  clearing  up  a 
number  of  doubtful  points,  and  also  in  es- 
tablishing more  than  one  new  and  impor- 
tant fact  not  elsewhere  on  record. 


VIU 


The  book  is  intended  to  be  a  guide  to 
that  particular  side  of  the  History  of  Flor- 
ence, and  of  the  Florentines,  by  birth  and 
by  adoption,  which  appeals  more  than  any 
other  side  to  me ;  and  it  is  written  for  the 
sake  of  those  who  care  to  know  how  and 
when  Florence  was  seen  and  enjoyed  by 
those  heroes  and  heroines  of  the  pen  whom 
we  know  and  love  through  their  works,  from 
Dante  and  Boccaccio  to  Hawthorne  and  the 
Brownings. 

I  would  rather  have  stood  by  the  side  of 
Dickens,  on  the  Fiesolean  Hill,  when  he 
caught  his  first  glimpse  of  Landor's  Villa, 
than  have  been  a  leader  of  the  Guelphs 
or  the  Ghibellines  who  distracted  Florence 
many  centuries  ago.  In  this  light  is  the 
volume  prepared,  and  for  those  whose  tastes 
and  sympathies  are  in  accord  with  my  own. 

Laurence  Hutton. 

Hotel  Paoli, 
Lung'  Arno  della  Zucca  Vecchia. 


LITERARY   LANDMARKS  OF  FLORENCE 


LITERARY   LANDMARKS   OF 
FLORENCE 


Florence  is  still  illumined  by  the  reflect- 
ed lights  of  its  four  great  fixed  stars :  Dante, 
who  rose  here  ;  Boccaccio,  who  blazed  here  ; 
Savonarola,  who  suffered  here  his  cruel 
eclipse  ;  and  Galileo,  who  here  peacefully  set. 
Other  planets  have  shone,  and  still  shine,  in 
its  firmament,  but  towards  these  four  great 
stellar  bodies  do  the  guides  and  the  guide- 
books chiefly  direct  their  telescopes  to-day. 
If  they  were  not  all  of  them  literary  lights 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  words,  they 
were,  unquestionably,  instrumental  in  cast- 
ing much  and  lasting  light  upon  the  litera- 
ture of  science,  humanity,  and  the  beautiful. 

Mr.  Howells,  in  the  delightful  chapter  en- 
titled "  A  Florentine  Mosaic,"  which  opens 


his  Tuscan  Cities,  says  so  much  about  Dante, 
in  his  house  and  out  of  it,  that  he  has  left — 
as  is  a  way  of  his — little  which  is  new  or  per- 
tinent for  those  who  come  after  him  to  say. 
He  goes  to  the  house,  not  far  from  Dante's, 
in  which,  according  to  tradition,  lived  Dante's 
wife,  and  to  the  house  "  just  across  the  way," 
where,  according  to  this  same  tradition,  lived 
Dante's  first  and  youthful  love;  he  carries 
us  to  the  neighboring  church  of  S.  Martino, 
in  which  tradition  says  that  Dante  was  mar- 
ried ;  and  everywhere  he  discourses  most  en- 
tertainingly and  most  instructively  concern- 
ing what  Dante  did  and  hoped  and  suffered. 
Dante  was  born  in  1265  ;  and  a  modern- 
ized house  in  the  Via  S.  Martino,  called  "  La 
Casa  Dante,"  still  bears  a  tablet  to  that  ef- 
fect. At  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century 
this  mansion  is  said  to  have  been  converted 
into  a  wine-shop,  much  frequented,  then  and 
later,  by  men  like  Michael  Angelo  and  Ben- 
venuto  Cellini,  perhaps  for  Dante's  sake,  per- 
haps for  the  sake  of  its  Chianti ;  but  a  few 
years  ago  it  was  restored  out  of  all  decency ; 
and  now  there  is  nothing  left  of  what  Dante 


knew  and  loved  there  but  the  sky  above  it 
and  the  earth  beneath.  Mr.  Howells  be- 
lieves "  that  the  back  of  Dante's  house  was 
not  smartened  up  into  Nineteenth-Century 
Mediaevalism "  as  was  its  front,  but  the 
weight  of  antiquarian  evidence,  in  this  re- 
spect, seems  to  be  against  him. 

It  is  not  an  easy  matter  for  the  stranger  in 
Florence  to  find  his  way  to  the  Casa  Dante, 
even  though  he  be  equipped  with  the  clear- 
est of  guide-books.  It  is  in  the  heart  of  the 
city,  and  not  very  far  from  the  Cathedral ; 
but  it  is  out  of  the  beaten  track  of  tourists ; 
and  the  policemen  in  cocked  hats,  and  the 
cab-drivers  in  hats  of  all  sorts,  do  not  always 
know  where  it  is.  Taking  the  broad  Via 
Calzajoli — that  is,  broad  for  Florence — from 
the  Duomo,  and  turning  to  the  left  into  the 
narrow  Via  Tavolini,  a  continuation  of  the 
Via  S.  Martino,  now  called  the  Via  Dante 
Alighieri,  a  step  or  two  beyond  the  little 
Piazza  S.  Martino,  you  will  come  upon  it ; 
a  tall,  thin,  commonplace  house — No.  2  Via 
S.  Martino — with  an  inscription  over  the  door 
stating  that  here  the  Divine  Poet  was  born, 


and  an  inscription  on  the  door  stating  that 
the  door  is  open  to  strangers  on  Wednesdays 
and  Saturdays,  from  ten  in  the  morning  until 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  door 
itself,  according  to  Dr.  J.  Marcotti,  is  placed 
where  was  no  door  in  Dante's  time  ;  and  even 
during  the  few  hours  of  the  week  in  which 
the  latch-string  hangs  out  the  doorway  is  not 
worth  entering.  A  flight  of  new  stone  steps 
conducts  one  to  two  small  rooms,  in  the  first 
of  which  Dante  could  not  possibly  have  been 
born,  unless  he  were  born  some  six  centuries 
after  the  accepted  date  of  his  birth,  and  in 
the  second  of  which  are  a  few  very  doubtful 
relics  of  the  poet,  some  more  than  doubtful 
portraits  of  him,  and  a  cast  of  his  dead  face 
which  claims  to  be,  and  is  not,  the  original 
mask. 

Dr.  Marcotti,  usually  reliable,  inclines  to 
doubt  that  Dante  was  married  in  the  little 
church  of  S.  Martino  at  all,  notwithstanding 
the  solemn  allegations  of  the  present  custo- 
dian, and  despite  the  fact  that  an  ancient 
fresco  there  is  said,  by  this  very  custodian, 
to  represent  the  very  wedding  in  question. 


As  Dante  was  undoubtedly  born  somewhere, 
so  was  he  unquestionably  married  somewhere, 
and  to  somebody  ;  and  if  he  was  not  married 
in  this  particular  church,  we  have  no  authority 
for  believing  that  he  was  married  anywhere 
else. 

"  There  are  stories  that  Dante  was  unhap- 
py with  his  wife,"  writes  Mr.  Charles  Eliot 
Norton,  in  his  Life  of  Dante — edition  of  1892, 
page  149 ;  "  but  they  start  with  Boccaccio, 
who  was  a  story-telling  gossip.  He  insinu- 
ates more  than  he  asserts  concerning  Dante's 
domestic  infelicity,  and  concludes  a  vague 
declaration  about  the  miseries  of  married  life 
with  the  words — '  Truly  I  do  not  affirm  that 
these  things  happened  to  Dante,  for  I  do  not 
know ' !" 

This  same  story-telling  gossip  is  responsi- 
ble for  many  other  stories  concerning  Dante 
which  have  since  been  accepted  as  true,  and 
concerning  which  nobody  knows  to  this  day. 
At  all  events,  Dante's  wife  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  a  very  comforting  or  a  very  com- 
fortable lady  to  have  lived  with.  She  was 
the  mother  of  four  of  his  children,  who  were 


all  of  them  homely,  according  to  the  tradi- 
tional testimony  of  their  father  himself ;  and 
one  of  them  was  certainly  named  Beatrice. 
After  Dante's  expulsion  from  Florence  his 
wife  is  said  to  have  saved  certain  of  his  man- 
uscripts from  destruction ;  and  the  story  runs 
that  she  sent  the  first  seven  cantos  of  The 
Inferno  after  him  into  his  exile.  This  was 
not  a  little  to  her  credit ;  and  it  is  almost  a 
pity  that  she  never  saw  her  husband  again. 

Dante's  Beatrice,  whom  Boccaccio  believed 
to  have  been  a  member  of  the  Portinari  fam- 
ily— which  may  or  may  not  be  the  case — and 
who  at  the  mature  age  of  eight  excited  the 
tender  passion  in  the  bosom  of  Dante,  then 
a  mature  youth  of  nine,  lived  with  her  father, 
according  to  the  guide-books,  on  the  site  of 
the  Palazzo  Salviati,  on  the  corner  of  the 
Via  del  Corso  and  the  Via  del  Proconsolo ; 
and — still  according  to  the  guide-books — in 
the  court-yard  of  the  present  building  there 
remains,  to  this  day,  a  stone  seat,  in  a  niche 
in  the  wall,  upon  which,  tradition  says,  the 
blossoming  poet  was  wont  to  sit  and  gaze  in 
rapture  upon  the  nursery  windows  of  the  ob- 


ject  of  his  adoration.  They  saw  each  other 
— still  according  to  tradition — in  the  court- 
yard of  her  father's  house,  wherever  it  may 
have  stood,  at  a  May-Day  Festival ;  and  at 
first  sight  they  were  mutually  attracted.  No 
sooner  met  but  they  looked ;  no  sooner 
looked  but  they  loved. 

Dante  has  put  on  record  the  impression 
she  made  upon  him  then.  He  tells  how  she 
appeared,  and  what  she  wore ;  and  he  adds — 
the  translation  is  by  Mr.  Norton — "  Though 
her  image,  which  staid  constantly  with  me, 
gave  assurance  to  Love  to  hold  lordship  over 
me,  yet  it  was  of  such  noble  virtue  that  it 
never  suffered  Love  to  rule  me  without  the 
faithful  consul  of  the  reason  in  those  matters 
in  which  it  were  useful  to  hear  such  consul." 
This  must  have  been  pleasant  reading  for 
the  woman  whom  Dante  married ;  and  if  it 
were  found  among  the  manuscripts  which 
she  preserved  from  fire  by  her  care  and  de- 
votion, it  would  prove  that  Dante  was  him- 
self not  entirely  blameless  for  the  incom- 
patibility of  temper  which  is  said  to  have 
existed  between  them. 


Signorina  Portinari  was  married,  to  some- 
body else,  before  she  was  twenty-four ;  and 
Dante's  Beatrice  died  in  1290.  She  was 
probably  not  the  woman  Dante  imagined 
her  to  be ;  and  it  would  have  been  a  great 
deal  better  for  Dante,  and  for  all  concerned, 
if  he  had  not  set  the  fashion  of  falling  in  love 
with,  and  rhapsodizing  over,  an  ideal  creat- 
ure, which  has  since  been  followed  ad  nau- 
seam by  other  poets  not  quite  so  divine. 

The  whole  question  of  the  status  and  con- 
dition of  the  Casa  Dante  is  involved  in  mys- 
tery and  conjecture,  which  is  not  relieved  by 
the  widely  varying  statements  of  the  local 
guides.  His  family  certainly  lived  in  its 
neighborhood  ;  their  domicile  not  only  hav- 
ing an  entrance  upon  the  Piazza  S.  Marti- 
no,  but  also  one  upon  the  Via  Margherita, 
which  runs  by  the  side  of  what  is  now  called 
the  "  Dante  House,"  from  No.  1  Via  Dante 
Alighieri  to  No.  3  Via  del  Corso.  But  ex- 
actly where  the  domicile  stood,  and  how 
much  of  it  is  now  left,  no  person  living  can 
say ;  and  all  the  doctors  differ.  Professor 
Cesare  Calvi,  of  Florence,  an  enthusiastic  and 


learned  student  of  Dante  and  of  his  times, 
has  devoted  much  care  and  thought  to  this 
portion  of  his  subject ;  and  to  him  I  am  in- 
debted for  the  following  hitherto  unpub- 
lished attempt  to  unravel  the  tangle  of 
words  and  of  facts. 

"  The  present  House  of  Dante,"  he  says, 
a  has  been  rebuilt  upon  the  site  of  a  portion 
of  the  old  house,  which  extended  around  to 
the  Piazzetta  della  S.  Margherita.  The  Do- 
nati  had  several  houses,  in  one  of  which 
lived  Gemma  Donati,  whom  Dante  married. 
These  houses  looked  out  upon  the  back  of 
the  present  Piazza  della  Rena,  which,  in  those 
days,  was  called  the  Donati  Court-yard.  They 
had  one  house,  also,  on  the  Corso,  opposite 
the  Church  of  S.  Maria  dei  Ricci.  Beatrice 
Portinari  lived  in  a  palace  on  the  Corso,  af- 
terwards called  the  Palazzo  Cepparello,  where 
now  the  Fathers  Scolopi  have  their  school." 
The  site  of  this  house  of  the  Portinari  is 
No.  4  Via  del  Corso,  some  fifty  or  sixty  paces 
from  the  Via  Proconsolo,  and  some  twenty- 
five  paces  from  the  little  Via  S.  Margherita. 
It  possesses  a  court-yard ;  but  if  it  contains 


IO 

a  stone  seat  or  a  niche  in  the  wall,  where 
the  juvenile  lover  of  the  thirteenth  century 
could  have  sat  and  mooned,  such  a  niche 
and  such  a  seat  are  not  visible  to  the  naked 
eye,  or  through  the  spectacles,  of  the  Liter- 
ary Pilgrim  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Beyond  the  Porta  S.  Gallo  is  a  meadow,  or 
grove,  which  once  belonged  to  Dante,  and 
which  was  a  favorite  spot  of  his  in  summer 
evenings,  where  he  walked  and  pondered, 
and  made  anni  rhyme  with  sganni  and  posse 
with  grosse,  without  any  interference  on  the 
part  of  his  wife.  It  now  forms  a  portion  of 
the  garden  of  the  Villa  Bondi,  formerly  the 
Villa  Camerata,  standing  on  the  Via  della 
Piazzola,  just  beyond  the  small  Dominican 
convent  which  is  on  the  right  as  one  goes 
towards  Fiesole.  It  is  very  close  to  the  Villa 
Palmieri,  or  Villa  Crawford,  so  intimately  as- 
sociated, by  tradition,  with  Boccaccio. 

Dr.  Marcotti  says  that  it  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  the  Alighieri  family  owned  much 
property  on  the  hill  of  Camerata,  and  he 
adds  that  at  the  time  of  the  celebration  of 
the  six-hundredth  birthday  of  Dante  it  was 


II 


clearly  established,  by  positive  documents, 
that  the  Villa  Alighieri  was,  during  the  early 
years  of  the  fourteenth  century,  that  which 
was  later  known  as  the  Garofano.  During 
the  period  of  Dante's  banishment  this 
property  was  confiscated  by  the  state,  and 
afterwards  returned  to  the  Alighieris,  who 
sold  it,  in  1332,  to  the  Portinaris,  the  family 
to  which  Beatrice  is  asserted  to  have  be- 
longed ;  and  they,  in  their  turn,  disposed  of 
it  in  1507.  The  arms  of  the  Portinaris  are 
still  visible  upon  certain  portions  of  the 
house,  and  the  Portinaris  seem  to  have  re- 
stored and  renovated  it  during  the  fifteenth 
century.  Owing  to  the  antiquarian  interest 
of  Signor  Bondi,  into  whose  possession  it 
came  later,  its  original  style  and  conditions 
have  been  carefully  preserved. 

"  Dante's  Stone,"  upon  which,  according 
to  tradition,  the  poet  sat  and  gazed  upon  the 
cathedral,  then  in  course  of  construction,  is 
itself  of  traditional  authenticity,  because  lit- 
tle more  than  the  lowest  foundations  of  the 
Duomo  had  been  built  in  Dante's  time.  The 
stone  is  still  preserved,  however,  and,  for  safe- 


12 


keeping,  it  has  been  placed  in  the  wall  of  the 
house  numbered  30  Piazza  del  Duomo,  on 
the  south  side  of  the  square.  It  is  a  few 
feet  above  the  street  level,  and  when  the 
present  chronicler  last  saw  it,  or  tried  to  see 
it,  it  was  entirely  covered  by  election  post- 
ers; showing  the  power  of  politics  over 
poetry  even  in  Florence  at  the  end  of  the 
prosaic  nineteenth  century. 

We  are  hardly  inclined  to  think  of  Dante 
as  a  Path -Master  or  Street  Commissioner; 
nevertheless,  recently  discovered  documents 
show  that  in  1301,  just  after  he  had  served 
his  term  as  Prior,  a  petition  was  presented 
to  the  six  officials  who  had  charge  of  the 
public  roads,  squares,  bridges,  etc.,  of  Flor- 
ence requesting  that  a  certain  thoroughfare 
should  be  widened  and  extended,  and  that 
Dante  was  appointed  to  oversee  the  whole 
matter. 

The  most  interesting  relic  of  Dante  in 
Florence,  except  of  course  the  famous,  al- 
leged, cast  of  his  dead  face  in  the  Uffizi 
Gallery,  is  the  mural  portrait  in  what  was 
once  the  chapel  of  the  Bargello.     For  many 


DEATH-MASK    OF    DANTE 


13 

generations  it  was  covered  by  repeated  coat- 
ings of  the  whitewash  which  the  Italians  are 
so  fond  of  using  in  the  wrong  places,  and 
it  only  saw  the  light  again  through  the  zeal 
and  enthusiasm  of  Mr.  R.  H.  Wilde  and 
other  American  and  English  antiquaries,  forty 
or  fifty  years  ago.  It  is  believed  to  have 
been  painted  in  1302,  when  Dante  was  in 
his  prime  ;  and,  although  it  has  been  sadly 
abused,  it  is  very  precious  in  the  eyes  of  all 
lovers  of  the  lover  of  Beatrice. 

Mr.  Hare  points  out  a  number  of  the 
Landmarks  of  Boccaccio  here:  the  site  of 
"  the  darksome,  sad,  and  silent  house "  in 
which  he  was  born  [?]  ;  the  Church  of  S. 
Stefano,  between  the  Via  Porta  S.  Maria 
and  the  Ufrlzi  Palace,  where  he  once  lect- 
ured upon  Dante's  Divine  Comedy ;  the  Via 
della  Morta,  behind  the  Misericordia,  which 
is  the  scene  of  a  Romeo  and  Juliet  sort  of 
tale  by  Boccaccio ;  the  old  tower  of  the  Pa- 
lazzo Manelli  on  the  corner  of  the  Ponte 
Veechio  (No.  1)  and  the  Via  de'  Bardi,  just 
at  the  end  of  the  bridge,  where  he  spent 
many  happy  hours  with  his  friend  Francesco 


14 

de'  Amanetti,  who  is  said  to  have  made  a 
copy  of  the  Decameron  from  the  original 
manuscript.  But,  curiously  enough,  Mr. 
Hare  does  not  allude  to  Boccaccio's  as- 
sociation with  the  Villa  Palmieri  near  S. 
Domenico,  and  on  the  old  road  to  Fiesole, 
where  a  choice  party  of  ladies  and  gentle- 
men are  said  to  have  spent  some  time,  dur- 
ing the  plague  of  1348,  in  the  telling  of 
choice  stories  for  each  other's  amusement. 
This  fine  old  country-seat,  now  called  the 
Villa  Crawford,  and  a  favorite  Florentine 
residence  of  Queen  Victoria,  is  on  the  Via 
Boccaccio,  on  the  right-hand  side,  and  about 
half-way  up  the  hill,  as  one  goes,  by  the 
Porta  S.  Gallo,  towards  Fiesole.  It  has 
many  terraces ;  and  it  is  guarded  by  ancient 
statues  of  Italian  gentlemen  and  ladies  of 
Boccaccio's  day,  who  strike  one,  as  they 
struck  Mr.  Howells,  as  being  plastic  repre- 
sentations of  the  very  members  of  high  life 
who  so  long  ago  narrated  Boccaccio's  tales 
of  deep  and  lasting  love.  They  are  far 
away  from  the  electric  cars,  which  run  to 
and  from  Florence  and  Fiesole — in  Boston 


15 

style.  And  the  prosaic  nineteenth  century 
has  not  yet  succeeded  in  robbing  them  of 
any  of  their  fourteenth-century  charm. 

The  Villa  Gherardo,  or  Villa  Ross,  on  the 
Via  Settignanese,  and  about  half-way  up  the 
hill  towards  the  little  village  of  Settignano, 
just  at  the  outskirts  of  Florence,  also  lays 
claim  to  the  Decameron.  It  is  a  fine  old 
chateau,  of  large  size  and  with  beautiful  gar- 
dens. It  dates  back  to  the  tenth  century ; 
it  has  a  terrace  of  its  own,  and  it  is  ap- 
proached by  a  long,  winding  avenue,  thickly 
hedged  by  bushes  of  luxuriant  roses.  It  is 
now  occupied  by  Mr.  Henry  Ross,  an  English 
gentleman,  who  has  made  horticulture  his 
particular  and  very  successful  study,  and  by 
Mrs.  Janet  Ross,  his  wife,  equally  distin- 
guished in  the  study  of  letters,  who  is  the 
daughter  of  Lady  Duff -Gordon,  and  the 
youngest  of  three  generations  of  very  re- 
markable women. 

In  this  villa,  Mr.  Mark  Twain,  their  near 
neighbor  in  the  winter  of  1892-93,  enter- 
tained, more  than  once,  a  select  company  of 
ladies    and    gentlemen   with   the   stories  of 


16 

Jim  Wool/  and  Huckleberry  Finn,  while  the 
influenza,  in  a  mild  form,  was  raging  in  the 
city  at  their  feet.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ross  prove 
very  conclusively,  from  local  tradition,  and 
from  Boccaccio's  own  description  of  the  Villa 
Gherardo  in  the  introduction  to  the  Decam- 
eron, that  theirs  is  the  "  stately  palace,  with 
a  grand  and  beautiful  court  in  the  middle, 
upon  a  little  eminence,  remote  from  any  great 
road,  amidst  trees  and  shrubs  of  an  agree- 
able verdure,  and  two  short  miles  from  Flor- 
ence, "  to  which  the  story-tellers  repaired  on 
the  now  famous  Wednesday,  by  break  of 
day.  The  galleries  and  fine  apartments  are 
still  "  elegantly  fitted  up  and  adorned  with 
the  curious  paintings"  of  which  Boccaccio 
spoke ;  and  around  it  are  still "  its  fine  mead- 
ows and  most  delightful  gardens  with  foun- 
tains of  the  best  and  purest  water  M ;  while 
"  the  rooms  are  graced  with  the  flowers  of 
the  season,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  all 
who  see  them,"  even  at  the  present  time. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  end  of 
the  second  day,  which  was  Thursday,  Neifile, 
the  new  Queen  of  the  Feast,  proposed  an 


17 

adjournment  to  another  time  and  to  another 
place ;  and  that  on  the  Monday  morning 
early,  "  conducted  by  the  music  of  the  night- 
ingales and  other  tuneful  birds,"  they  went 
"  full  west  "  by  a  little  path,  little  frequented, 
to  another  beautiful  palace  situated  also  on 
an  eminence  and  on  a  large  plain.  Here 
were  u  broad,  straight  walks,  filled  with 
vines ;  and  in  the  middle  of  the  garden  was 
a  plot  of  ground  like  a  meadow;  and  in  the 
centre  of  the  meadow  was  a  fountain  of 
white  marble."  And  so  came  they  to  the 
Villa  Palmieri ;  and  Signor  Filostrato  began 
the  First  Novel  of  the  Third  Day.  The 
story  is  still  extant,  thanks,  perhaps,  to  Am- 
anetti's  copy  of  the  original  manuscript,  and 
is  written  in  very  choice  Italian,  hardly  fit 
to  be  translated  into  the  vitiated  English  of 
the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  association  of  these  two  houses  with 
the  Decameron  is  further  established  by  Bal- 
delli  in  his  Life  of  Boccaccio.  He  writes  that 
the  poet  owned  a  small  villa  in  the  parish  of 
Maiano,  and  that  he  was  fond  of  describing 
the    surrounding    country,  particularly   the 


i8 


smiling  slopes  and  rich  valleys  of  the  Fieso- 
lean  hills,  which  overshadowed  his  modest 
dwelling.  "Thus,"  continues  the  biographer 
— "  thus  from  the  poetical  picture  which  he 
draws  of  the  first  halting-place  of  the  gay 
company,  we  recognize  the  Villa  Gherardo, 
while  from  the  description  of  the  sumptuous 
palace  to  which  they  afterwards  went,  in 
order  not  to  be  annoyed  by  tiresome  visitors, 
[do  we  recognize]  the  beautiful  Villa  Pal- 
mieri." 

The  confusion  and  the  misinformation 
contained  in  the  guide-books  to  Florence,  of 
all  languages  and  in  all  times,  are  too  pro- 
found and  too  ingenious  to  be  altogether 
accidental.  When  we  are  told  that  the  site 
of  the  house  in  which  Boccaccio  first  saw 
the  light  is  now  marked  by  an  old  fountain 
on  the  corner  of  the  Via  Guicciardini  and 
the  Via  Toscanella,  we  consider  the  matter 
very  simple  ;  but  when  we  find  that  the  Via 
Toscanella  and  the  Via  Guicciardini  run  in 
parallel  lines,  and  consequently  cannot  have 
a  corner;  and  when  we  discover  no  sign  of 
a  fountain,  ancient  or  otherwise,  in  either 


19 

street,  we  sit  us  down,  in  some  ancient  door- 
way, in  utter  despair.  And  we  are  forced  to 
conjecture  that  the  ancient  fountain  in  the 
Borgo  S.  Jacopo,  just  around  the  corner 
from  the  Via  Guicciardini,  and  some  steps 
away  from  the  Via  Toscanella,  may,  perhaps, 
be  upon  the  sacred  spot  from  which  the  au- 
thor of  the  Decameron  set  out  upon  his  illus- 
trious career,  until,  after  further  research,  we 
learn,  upon  excellent  authority,  that  Boccac- 
cio was  not  born  in  Florence  at  all ! 

Boccaccio  certainly  lived,  and  died,  and 
was  buried — for  a  time — in  the  otherwise 
uninteresting  little  town  of  Certaldo,  about 
thirty-five  miles  from  Florence,  and  on  the 
road  to  Siena.  His  house,  very  much  re- 
stored, and  marked  with  a  tablet,  is  still  in 
existence  there ;  and  his  fellow-townsmen, 
although  they  scattered  his  bones  and  broke 
his  monument  a  century  or  so  ago,  still  as- 
sert, and  with  proper  pride,  that  he  was  born 
in  their  midst,  mainly  upon  the  strength  of 
the  fact  that  he  called  himself  "  Boccaccio 
of  Certaldo." 

That    Boccaccio,  the  son    of   a    Parisian 


20 


mother,  was  born  in  Paris  and  brought  by 
an  Italian  father  to  Florence  at  an  early  age 
is,  however,  the  generally  accepted  theory  of 
the  place  and  conditions  of  his  birth.  And 
this  is  the  conclusion  reached  by  Dr.  Marcus 
Landau,  a  German  biographer  of  Boccaccio, 
and  a  careful  and  conscientious  student  of 
his  subject.  He  bases  his  belief  upon  cir- 
cumstantial evidence,  as  well  as  upon  Boccac- 
cio's Ametoy  which  is,  unquestionably,  a  slight- 
ly veiled  account  of  the  story  of  the  poet's 
mother  as  told  in  later  years  by  the  poet 
himself.  Nevertheless,  Roberto  Gherardo 
(Lord  of  Poggio  Gherardo)  left  an  interest- 
ing, and  very  prolix,  manuscript  account, 
written  in  1740,  of  the  house  near  his  own 
estate,  and  called  Villeggiatura  di  Maiano. 
He  said  (the  translation  is  furnished  me  by 
Mrs.  Ross) :  "  In  a  small  villa  near  Corbignano, 
now  owned  by  Signor  Ottavio  Ruggeri,  and 
which  in  ancient  times  belonged  to  Boccac- 
cio di  Chellino,  and  where  he  lived  after  he 
left  Certaldo,  his  birthplace,  to  come  to  Flor- 
ence, was  born  our  Maestro  Giovanni,  whose 
birthplace,  till  now,  it  has  been  impossible 


21 

to  discover.  I  am  the  more  convinced  that 
our  Maestro  was  born  in  this  villa,  because  it 
lies  about  a  mile  distant  from  the  valley  of 
Ameto,  where  he  describes  himself,  under  the 
name  of  Ameto,  as  often  visiting  the  Fairies 
and  the  Dryads  who  inhabited  these  forests, 
he  being  the  child  of  the  adjacent  hills." 

This  may  have  been  convincing  to  the  Lord 
of  Poggio  Gherardo,  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  but  I  do  not  give  it  as 
convincing  to  a  lord  of  a  high-stoop  brick 
house  in  Thirty  -  fourth  Street,  New  York, 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century;  and 
where  Boccaccio  was  born,  so  long  as  he  was 
not  born  in  Florence,  leaving  a  Literary  Land- 
mark here,  on  that  account,  it  is  not  the 
purpose  of  this  volume  to  discuss.  That  the 
Gherardi  bought  Pelagio  del  Poggio — "  the 
House  on  the  Slope  " — in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  1342  and  held  it  in  their  family  until 
it  came  into  the  possession  of  Mr.  Ross,  a 
few  years  ago,  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to 
mention  here,  as  showing  that  the  Italians 
do  not,  as  a  rule,  "  move"  on  the  first  day  of 
every  May. 


22 


The  Villa  Ross,  unfortunately,  was  some- 
what shattered  and  injured  by  the  earth- 
quake which  picked  up  and  shook  Florence 
and  its  neighboring  hills — for  five  seconds — 
in  May,  1895,  as  a  dog  picks  up  and  shakes  a 
rat.  The  grand  old  tower  of  the  Gherardi, 
which  had  stood  for  so  many  centuries,  was 
so  badly  damaged  that  it  had  to  be  entire- 
ly demolished,  for  safety's  sake,  by  human 
hands. 

Petrarch  is,  naturally,  associated  with  many 
of  the  cities  of  Italy ;  but  in  Florence,  as  his 
biographer  expresses  it,  he  seems  to  have 
"  stopped  only  occasionally,  to  hold  converse 
with  his  friends."  Concerning  his  life  here 
the  histories  and  the  guide-books  are  abso- 
lutely silent.  We  know,  however,  that  his 
mother  was  born  in  the  Palazzo  Canigiana, 
on  the  Via  de'  Bardi.  And  there  is  a  tradi- 
tion— which  is  not  an  unreasonable  tradition 
— that  he  was  more  than  once  an  inmate  of 
the  Palazzo  Manelli,  so  pleasantly  associated 
with  Boccaccio.  No  letter  of  Petrarch  dated 
from  Florence,  or  referring  to  Florence,  is 
known  to  exist  now. 


23 

Mr.  Howells  has  not  only  foreclosed  all 
literary  mortgages  upon  the  Meadow  of 
Dante  in  Florence,  but  he  has  ploughed  and 
harrowed  the  Landmarks  of  Savonarola  here, 
and  has  sown  and  reaped  a  rich  harvest.  The 
gleaner  of  the  after-math  can  only  say  that 
Savonarola  sprouted  and  blossomed  and 
bore  his  fruit  in  the  hard,  rough  field  of  Flor- 
entine tares  which  ultimately  crushed  his 
body  and  set  his  great  spirit  free. 

He  entered  the  Convent  of  S.  Marco  here 
as  a  young  man,  when  he  created  no  particu- 
lar impression  either  by  his  words  or  by  his 
deeds ;  but  when,  some  years  later,  he  was 
appointed  prior  of  the  convent,  he  at  once 
made  himself  heard  and  felt.  He  exhorted 
and  scolded  clergy  as  well  as  laity ;  and  he 
preached  purity  of  political  as  well  as  of  per- 
sonal conduct.  And  the  more  he  was  or- 
dered by  his  superiors  to  be  silent  the  more 
he  talked.  He  was  hissed  and  hooted,  and 
pelted  with  curses  and  with  stones.  He  was 
stretched,  in  the  Bargello,  upon  the  rack 
which  tortured  his  body  as  cruelly  as  perse- 
cution had  tortured  his  soul.     He  saw  his 


24 

two  faithful  monks  slaughtered  before  his 
eyes ;  he  was  hung  by  the  neck  on  the  scaf- 
fold ;  and  his  body  was  consumed  by  fire 
while  life  was  still  in  it ;  and  still  he  preached. 
And  still  he  preaches  to  all  the  world.  "  My 
sons,"  he  said,  in  the  library  of  S.  Marco — 
"  my  sons,  in  the  presence  of  God,  standing 
before  the  sacred  host,  and  with  my  enemies 
already  in  the  convent,  I  now  confirm  my 
doctrine.  What  I  have  said  came  to  me 
from  God,  and  He  is  my  witness  in  heaven 
that  what  I  say  is  true. . . .  My  last  admoni- 
tion to  you  is  this :    Let  your  arms  be  faith, 

patience,  and  prayer I  know  not  whether 

my  enemies  will  take  my  life ;  but  of  this  I 
am  certain,  that  dead,  I  shall  be  able  to  do 
more  for  you  in  heaven,  than  living  I  have 
ever  had  power  to  do  on  earth." 

Pope  Pius  VI L,  many  years  after  Savona- 
rola's death,  is  reported  to  have  said :  "  I 
shall  learn  in  the  next  world  the  mystery  of 
that  man.  War  raged  around  Savonarola  in 
his  lifetime ;  it  has  never  ceased  since  his 
death.  Saint,  schismatic  or  heretic,  ignorant 
vandal  or  Christian  martyr,  prophet  or  char- 


SAVONAROLA 


25 

latan,  champion  of  the  Roman  Church  or 
apostle  of  emancipated  Italy  —  which  was 
Savonarola?" 

Whether  he  was  saint  or  heretic,  prophet 
or  charlatan,  Savonarola  and  his  memory  are 
still  honored  in  Florence ;  and  his  relics  are 
never  profaned  even  by  political  posters. 
The  crucifix  before  which  he  is  said  to  have 
knelt  in  prayer  is  still  cherished  in  the  Church 
of  S.  Michele ;  his  portrait  is  still  religiously 
kept  in  the  Convent  of  S.  Marco,  where  one 
still  sees,  now  and  then,  on  the  priests  in  its 
cloisters,  the  white  Dominican  gowns  similar 
to  that  in  which  he  preached ;  and  in  the 
cells  in  the  convent  occupied  by  him  in  later 
life  are  preserved  carefully  not  only  his  por- 
trait, attributed  to  Fra  Bartolommeo — and 
the  best  of  him  ever  taken — but  some  of  his 
manuscripts,  portions  of  his  wardrobe,  his  ro- 
sary, and  a  bit  of  charred  wood,  plucked  from 
the  fire  upon  which  his  body  was  consumed. 

It  was  hoped  that  this  might  prove  a  me- 
morial of  Florence  unique  in  its  way,  because 
of  no  occurrence  of  the  name  of  the  Medici. 
But  as  Mr.  Dick  could  not  resist  the  mention 


26 


of  Charles  I.,  so  can  I  not  help  a  passing 
allusion  or  two  to  the  family  which  for  years 
forced  themselves  into  every  event  connect- 
ed with  the  history  of  the  city.  Ferdinand 
II.  of  that  tribe,  as  will  be  seen,  attempted 
to  patronize  Galileo ;  and  Lorenzo  the  Mag- 
nificent, on  his  death-bed,  was,  according  to 
tradition,  severely  snubbed  by  Savonarola. 
Dying  in  his  villa  at  Careggi,  the  Magnifi- 
cent Medici  sent  for  the  Fighting  Prior, 
to  whom  he  confessed  as  many  of  his 
greater  sins  as  he  could  remember  in  so 
short  a  time.  Absolution  was  promised  on 
three  conditions.  First,  that  he  should  have 
a  full  and  lively  faith  in  the  mercy  of  God. 
This  was  easy  enough.  Second,  that  he 
should  restore  all  things  he  had  unjustly 
possessed  himself  of.  This  was  harder,  but 
it  could  be  done.  Third,  that  he  should  re- 
store liberty  to  the  people  of  Florence.  This 
was  too  much  to  ask,  even  of  a  dying  man, 
and  even  in  view  of  so  glorious  a  reward. 
And  the  magnificent  monk  left  the  misera- 
ble Medici  to  go,  unforgiven  of  priest,  be- 
fore the  Final  Judge. 


SAVONAROLA  S   CELL 


27 

It  is  only  proper  to  observe  here  that  con- 
siderable doubt  has  been  expressed  in  regard 
to  this  story,  which  is  based  mainly  on  the 
statements  of  Savonarola's  friends.  Polizi- 
ano,  who  was  with  Lorenzo,  says,  simply,  that 
Savonarola  confessed  the  Medici,  but  retired 
without  volunteering  the  blessing. 

The  beautiful  Villa  di  Careggi  lies  outside 
of  the  Barrier  Ponte  Rosso,  on  the  left.  It 
is  reached  by  the  Via  Vittorio  Emanuele 
and  the  Via  Macerelli.  The  name  is  on 
the  gate ;  and  not  very  much  but  the  name 
is  left  of  what  Savonarola  and  the  Medici 
knew  of  it. 

Pasquale  Villari,  in  his  Macchiavelli  and  his 
Times,  speaks  in  the  highest  terms  of  the  in- 
tellectual qualities  of  the  Magnificent  Lo- 
renzo, who  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the 
wisest  as  well  as  one  of  the  meanest  of  man- 
kind. According  to  Villari,  he  was  educated 
by  the  first  men  of  letters  of  the  age  in 
which  he  lived,  and  he  proved  himself  the 
equal  of  many  of  them  in  wit  and  in  learn- 
ing. He  spent  immoderate  sums  of  money 
for  the  advancement  of  literature,  while  he 


28 


gave  himself  up  to  dissipations  which  ruined 
his  health  and  shortened  his  days.  Learned 
men  were  employed  in  the  public  offices, 
and  "  from  Florence,  under  his  rule,"  says 
the  historian,  "spread  a  light  which  illu- 
mined the  world.  Lorenzo,  with  his  varied 
and  well-cultivated  talents,  his  keen  penetra- 
tion and  unerring  judgment  in  all  depart- 
ments of  knowledge,  was  no  ordinary  patron 
and  Maecenas;  he  stood  among  the  first 
literati  of  his  kind,  and  he  took  an  active 
part  in  the  labor  he  promoted,  not  only  in 
the  interests  of  his  government,  but  also  from 
real  and  undoubted  intellectual  tastes.  .  .  . 
In  his  [own]  poetry,  as  in  everything  else,  he 
displayed  great  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
and  a  fine  taste,  without,  however,  having 
sufficient  elevation  of  mind  to  reach  the 
heights  of  art.  Even  at  that  time  [when  he 
was  in  his  eighteenth  year]  we  find  fine 
taste  and  ease  in  his  verses,  which  are  writ- 
ten in  a  spontaneous  and  something  too 
popular  manner." 

Lorenzo,  here  accepted  as  a  literary  man, 
has  left  many  landmarks  in  his  native  town. 


29 

He  was  born  in  the  Palazzo  Riccardi — then 
the  Palazzo  Medici — still  standing  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Via  Cavour;  and  he  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  buried  under  Michael 
Angelo's  "  Twilight "  and  "  Dawn,"  in  the 
Church  of  S.  Lorenzo,  where  he  is  represent- 
ed as  "  The  Thinker  "  by  the  same  artist,  a 
statue  of  which  Hawthorne  says :  "  No  such 
grandeur  and  majesty  have  elsewhere  been 
put  in  human  shape";  and  in  which  he  will 
live  for  centuries  after  he  is  entirely  forgot- 
ten as  a  man  of  letters  or  as  a  patron  of  the 
arts. 

But  to  return  to  Savonarola.  He  was 
imprisoned  in  the  Alberghettino,  or  little 
hotel  —  and  an  uncomfortable  little  hotel 
it  must  have  been  for  him — a  small  chamber 
in  the  tower  of  the  Palazzo  Vecchio  ;  and  he 
spent  the  last  night  of  his  mortal  life  in  the 
great  hall  of  the  Consiglio,  or,  as  it  is  some- 
times called,  the  Sala  dei  Cinquecento,  erect- 
ed for  the  meetings  of  the  council  established 
by  his  advice.  He  is  said  to  have  slept  peace- 
fully on  the  stone  floor  of  this  room,  with 
his  head  pillowed  on  the  knees  of  a  faithful 


3© 

attendant ;  and  on  the  morning  of  his  exe- 
cution he  received  the  last  sacrament  in 
the  Chapel  of  S.  Bernardo,  a  beautiful  little 
sanctuary  well  worthy  of  a  visit  for  its  own 
beautiful  sake. 

The  scene  of  Savonarola's  death,  accord- 
ing to  tradition  and  to  the  local  guide-books, 
is  on  the  site  of  the  great  Fountain  of  Nep- 
tune, by  the  side  of  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  in 
the  Piazza  della  Signoria  which,  for  many 
years,  was  known  as  the  Piazza  del  Gran 
Duca.  But  the  execution  would  seem  to 
have  taken  place  nearer  the  centre  of  the 
square,  if  any  reliance  can  be  placed  upon  an 
old  and  obviously  incorrect  representation  of 
the  event  which  is  preserved  in  the  inner  of 
Savonarola's  two  cells  in  the  Convent  of  S. 
Marco.  The  picture,  a  print  of  which  is  here 
produced,  is  not  dated,  but  it  was  painted 
before  the  erection  of  the  Uffizi  Palace,  in 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  it 
shows  a  long  platform  stretching  from  the 
corner  of  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  and  from  where 
the  fountain  now  stands,  but  many  yards  far- 
ther towards  the  north,  and  about  the  site  of 


31 

the  great  glaring  electric  light  of  which  Mr. 
Ruskin  so  justly  complains.  It  should  be 
mentioned  here  that  most  of  the  modern 
maps  and  plans  of  Florence  are  constructed 
with  an  eye  for  the  picturesque,  and  without 
any  regard  to  the  natural  and  accepted  points 
of  the  compass,  the  north  and  the  south  being 
rarely,  if  ever,  on  the  top  or  the  bottom  of 
the  documents. 

Savonarola's  ashes  were  gathered  together 
at  nightfall  after  the  execution,  and  were 
cast  into  the  Arno.  Like  the  ashes  of  Wic- 
lif,  which  were  thrown  into  the  river  Swift, 
they  have  gone  "  into  narrow  seas,  and  thence 
into  the  broad  ocean,  and  thus  become  the 
emblem  of  his  doctrine,  which  is  now  dis- 
persed all  the  world  over." 

Notwithstanding  the  pride  of  the  Floren- 
tines in  the  possession  of  the  bones  of  Galileo, 
he  did  in  reality  very  little  for  Florence,  ex- 
cept to  come  here  to  die.  The  oscillations 
of  a  hanging-lamp  in  the  cathedral  at  Pisa, 
in  which  city  is  a  tablet  marking  the  site  of 
the  house  in  which  he  was  born,  gave  him 
the  first  idea  of  the  pendulum ;  and  he  first 


32 

turned  his  attention  to  the  thermometer, 
the  telescope,  and  the  microscope  at  Padua. 
When  he  was  punished  by  the  Inquisition  be- 
cause he  said  that  the  world  moved,  he  sought 
refuge  in  Florence  ;  and  from  here  he  went, 
peacefully  and  willingly,  in  1642,  to  join  the 
stars  which  he  had  brought  so  much  nearer 
to  the  moving  earth. 

The  Casa  Galileo  (on  the  south  side  of  the 
Arno),  No.  13  Costa  S.  Giorgio,  in  which 
Galileo  lived  for  some  years,  is  a  long  house 
on  a  sharp  incline ;  two  stories  in  height  up 
the  hill,  three  stories  in  height  below.  It 
is  defaced  by  ugly  modern  frescos,  and  by  a 
libellous  portrait  of  its  illustrious  occupant. 
A  military  barrack  is  just  beneath  it,  and 
crowds  of  children  beg  coppers  of  the  Land- 
marker  who  sits  him  down  in  front  of  it  to 
record  his  impressions,  while  their  seniors 
look  over  his  shoulder  at  the  little  book  in 
which,  to  their  great  surprise,  he  is  making 
notes  and  not  a  picturesque  sketch. 

The  tablet  on  this  house  of  Galileo  seems 
to  have  been  placed  there,  not  to  record  the 
great   fact  that  it  was  Galileo's  house,  but 


GALILEO 


33 

rather  to  record  the  utterly  unimportant  fact 
that  once  a  certain  member  of  the  Medici 
family  condescended  to  call  upon  Galileo 
here.  And  on  the  tablet  on  Galileo's  house 
at  Arcetri,  near  the  famous  tower,  there  is  no 
hint  given  to  the  world  that  a  greater  than 
any  of  the  Medici,  one  John  Milton,  a  young 
English  poet,  destined  soon  to  lose  the  sight 
of  his  eyes,  came,  in  1638,  to  visit  the  great 
Italian  astronomer,  grown  blind  already  by 
weight  of  years  and  of  sorrow. 

Although  one  of  Landor's  Imaginary  Con- 
versations was  that  between  Galileo  and  Mil- 
ton on  this  occasion,  neither  Galileo  nor  Mil- 
ton recorded,  unfortunately,  what  was  then 
said  or  done.  It  was  unquestionably  talk 
too  good  to  have  gone  up  the  chimney  or 
out  of  the  window ;  and  it  is  very  hard  for 
us,  even  with  Landor's  aid,  to  imagine  it. 

Galileo's  Tower  at  Arcetri  is  well  worthy  of 
a  visit,  because  of  the  view  to  be  obtained 
from  its  top,  if  for  no  other  reason.  It  is  sit- 
uated upon  a  commanding  eminence,  six  or 
seven  hundred  feet  above  the  Valley  of  the 
Arno;  and  it  is  reached  by  the  Porta  Ro- 


34 

mana,  along  the  broad  Viale  di  Poggio  Im- 
periale,  lined  with  its  tall  cypress-trees.  Here 
are  still  preserved,  in  the  study  he  occupied 
for  many  years,  Galileo's  microscope,  many 
of  his  astronomical  instruments,  his  portrait 
from  life  in  pen  and  ink  (it  is  supposed  by 
Guido  Reni)  one  of  his  autograph  letters,  the 
mask  of  his  dead  face,  and  other  interesting 
relics.  And  by  the  rough  wooden  steps  by 
which  he  himself  climbed  towards  the  sky 
one  can  now  ascend  to  the  square  roof,  to 
see  the  stars  by  night ;  and  to  see,  by  day,  a 
vista  almost  unparalleled  for  beauty  in  all 
this  revolving  world  in  which  we  live. 

Galileo's  Tower  forms  a  wing  of  a  long,  nar- 
row mansion,  beautiful  and  comfortable  and 
cheerful  enough,  no  doubt,  in  the  summer 
months,  but  cold  and  carpetless  and  dreary 
enough  in  the  bleak  winter  weather  of 
Sunny  Italy.  It  contains  old  and  pictu- 
resque furniture,  and  frescos,  and  a  few  rare 
pictures,  notably  a  portrait  of  Michael  An- 
gelo,  attributed  to  himself,  and  a  pencil 
sketch,  by  Canova,  of  the  mother  of  all  the 
Buonapartes  ;  a  family  which,  not  being  con- 


,••   >«■. 


35 

tent  with  having  taken  possession  of  almost 
all  the  rest  of  the  world,  still  claims  to  have 
been  indigenous  to  this  soil. 

The  Villa  Galileo,  in  which  Galileo  lived  in 
Arcetri,  while  using  the  tower  as  his  work- 
shop by  night  and  by  day,  and  in  which  he 
died,  is  now  numbered  23  Via  del  Piano  di 
Giullari.  It  stands  behind  and  below  the 
tower,  only  a  short  distance  away,  and  it  is 
on  the  first  turn  to  the  right  as  one  ascends 
to  the  Porta  Romana.  The  house  on  the 
street  side  is  commonplace  enough,  except 
for  a  baddish  modern  bust  of  Galileo,  and  for 
a  tablet  bearing  the  dates  of  his  birth  and 
his  death.  The  "  back  of  the  house,"  as  one 
of  the  guide-books  expresses  it,  "  fronts  on 
a  beautiful  garden,  and  commands  a  most 
lovely  view."  His  life  there  was  saddened  by 
domestic  as  well  as  by  public  trials,  and  was 
only  occasionally  cheered  by  such  expressions 
of  sympathy  as  men  like  John  Milton  could 
bring  to  him.  The  house  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  altered  since  Galileo  died — in  the 
year  in  which  Newton  was  born.  But  as  it 
is  not  "  a  show-place,"  and  as  permission  to 


36 

enter  it  is  granted  only  by  the  courtesy  of 
the  present  proprietor,  a  private  gentleman, 
the  present  chronicler  can  only  speak  of  it  as 
he  saw  it  from  the  little  street ;  and  he  can 
only  thank  Galileo  for  having  lived  in  it,  and 
for  having  lived  at  all. 

Both  the  house  and  the  Tower  of  Galileo, 
at  Arcetri,  are  now  easily  reached  from  Flor- 
ence by  the  prosaic  horse-car,  which,  like  the 
Buonapartes  of  three-quarters  of  a  century 
ago,  has  taken  possession  of  all  lands ;  and 
which  is  called,  in  all  languages — except  in 
the  language  which  originally  gave  it  a  name 
— "  the  tram." 

Galileo's  body  now  lies  in  a  magnificent 
monument  in  the  nave  of  the  Church  of  S. 
Croce.  According  to  the  Misses  Susan  and 
Joanna  Horner,  as  set  down  in  their  admi- 
rable Walks  in  Florence,  when  Galileo's  bones 
were  removed  there,  in  1757,  from  an  adjoin- 
ing chapel,  a  titled  and  enthusiastic  idiot  cut 
off  and  carried  away  the  forefinger  and  thumb 
of  the  right  hand  of  the  Master,  in  order  "to 
possess  the  instruments  with  which  Galileo 
had  written  his  great  works."     Another  fin- 


37 

ger,  removed  by  another  vandal,  is  said  to  be 
preserved  in  the  room  dedicated  to  Gali- 
leo at  the  Museum  of  Natural  History  here. 
Happily  the  head  of  Galileo,  which  directed 
these  "  instruments,"  was  undisturbed,  and 
now  rests  with  what  was  left  of  his  terres- 
trial body. 

Many  years  ago  Leigh  Hunt  wrote  : — 
"Above  all,  I  know  not  whether  the  most 
interesting  sight  in  Florence  is  not  a  little 
mysterious  bit  of  something  looking  like 
parchment,  which  is  shown  you  under  a  glass 
case  in  the  principal  public  library.  It  stands 
pointing  towards  heaven,  and  is  one  of  the 
ringers  of  Galileo.  The  hand  to  which  it 
belonged  is  supposed  to  have  been  put  to 
torture  by  the  Inquisition  for  ascribing  mo- 
tion to  the  earth ;  and  the  finger  is  now 
worshipped  for  having  proved  the  motion. 
After  this  let  no  suffering  reformer's  pen 
misgive  him.  If  his  cause  be  good,  justice 
will  be  done  it  some  day." 

Milton  came  to  Florence  in  the  autumn 
of  1638,  and  he  seems  to  have  made  many 
friends  here,  and  to  have  been  hospitably 


33 


entertained.  "  In  the  private  academies  of 
Italy,  whither  I  was  favored  to  resort,"  he 
wrote,  "  some  trifles  which  I  had  in  memory, 
composed  at  under  twenty  or  thereabout, 
met  with  an  acceptance  above  what  I  had 
looked  for ;  and  other  things  which  I  had 
shifted,  in  scarcity  of  books  and  conveniences, 
to  patch  up  among  them,  were  received  with 
written  encomium,  which  the  Italian  is  not 
forward  to  bestow  on  men  of  this  side  the 
Alps."  Again  he  said  : — "  There  it  was  that 
I  found  and  visited  Galileo,  grown  old,  a 
prisoner  of  the  Inquisition,  for  thinking,  in 
astronomy,  otherwise  than  the  Franciscan 
and  the  Dominican  licensers  thought." 

Milton  came  back  to  Florence  in  the 
spring  of  1639,  when,  according  to  his  own 
account,  he  was  received  with  no  less  eager- 
ness than  if  the  return  had  been  to  his  na- 
tive country  and  his  friends  at  home.  He 
remained  here  two  months  on  the  second 
visit,  and  Masson  believes  that  he  saw  Gali- 
leo again,  and  probably  more  than  once. 

While  Amerigo  Vespucci  has  no  espe- 
cial claims  to  Landmarks  that  are  Literary, 


39 

except  as  the  writer  of  voluminous  and  ex- 
cellent letters,  the  literature  of  a  great  na- 
tion owes  to  him  at  least  a  name ;  and  some 
of  its  makers  and  its  readers,  on  that  ac- 
count, if  on  no  other,  will  perhaps  care  to 
know,  when  they  come  to  Florence,  just 
where  he  was  born  and  lived.  The  site 
of  his  house  on  the  Borgo  Ognissanti — 
No.  1 8 — and  near  the  Via  dei  Fossi,  is 
now  occupied  by  a  hospital  founded  by 
him.  Here  he  wrote  the  letter  which  Martin 
Waldseemuller  quoted  in  his  Cosmographies 
Introductio  in  1 507,  with  the  remark : — "  Now 
a  fourth  part  of  the  world  has  been  found 
by  Amerigo  Vespucci,  and  I  do  not  see  why 
we  should  be  prevented  from  calling  it 
Ameriga  or  America."  And  thus  did  the 
local  habitation  which  Columbus  is  credited 
with  discovering  for  us  get  its  name.  A 
stone  in  the  floor  of  a  chapel  in  the  adjoin- 
ing church  of  Ognissanti  bears  the  legend, 
in  Latin,  that  it  was  once  the  property  of 
Vespucci ;  and  the  broad  avenue  on  the 
banks  of  the  river,  from  the  Ponte  alia  Car- 
raia  to  the  Piazza  degli  Zuavi,  is  called  Lung' 


40 

Arno  Amerigo  Vespucci  to  this  day  —  with 
no  one  to  object. 

Niccold  Macchiavelli  is  chiefly  interesting 
to  the  students  of  English  literature  as  having 
contributed  two  important  words  to  the  lan- 
guage. As  Macaulay  said,  out  of  the  sur- 
name of  Macchiavelli  we  have  coined  an  epi- 
thet for  a  knave,  and  out  of  his  Christian- 
name  a  synonym  for  the  devil ;  and,  asffudt- 
bras  Butler  put  it : 

"Nick  Macchiavel  had  ne'er  a  trick, 
Tho'  he  gave  his  name  to  our  Old  Nick." 

Whether  the  devil  in  this  case  has  re- 
ceived more  or  less  than  his  due,  it  is  not 
my  place,  or  my  purpose,  or  in  my  power, 
here  to  say. 

The  house  in  which  Macchiavelli  lived,  and 
died,  at  No.  16  Via  Guicciardini,  and  a  stone's- 
throw  from  the  Ponte  Vecchio,  on  the  south 
side  of  the  river,  has  no  less  than  two  tablets 
to  mark  these  facts,  the  later  and  larger  one 
haying  been  placed  there  in  1869,  on  the  four 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  great  man's 
birth.    The  mansion  has  been  cruelly  done 


41 

over,  during  the  last  decade  or  two,  and  its 
beautiful  door  was  carried  to  the  Tower  of 
Galileo,  where  it  is  still  preserved.  The 
house,  as  it  now  appears,  is  commonplace 
and  homely,  but  it  is  still  a  good  enough 
house  to  have  lived  and  died  in,  and  its  oc- 
cupant no  doubt  found  it  so,  after  an  ex- 
perience worse  than  death  in  a  Florentine 
jail. 

Macchiavelli,  poet,  philosopher,  critic,  his- 
torian, orator,  diplomat,  was  locked  up  for 
many  months,  and  among  the  lowest  crimi- 
nals, in  the  Stinche,  an  ancient  prison  which 
has  since  disappeared,  and  the  site  of  which 
is  now  occupied  by  the  Accademia  Filar- 
monica  and  the  Teatro  Pagliano,  in  the  Via 
del  Fosso,  near  the  Piazza  S.  Croce. 

Macchiavelli  was  buried  in  the  Church  of 
S.  Croce.  His  monument,  erected  by  public 
subscription  many  years  after  his  death,  is 
a  tardy  recognition  of  what  he  certainly  did 
for  his  town  and  his  country. 

Opposite  the  house  of  Macchiavelli,  in 
the  Via  Guicciardini,  stands  the  house  occu. 
pied  by  the  historian  Francesco  Guicciardinis 


42 

who  gave  his  name  to  the  street  in  which  he 
was  born  and  in  which  he  lived  for  many 
years.  He  is  believed  to  have  died  at  Ar- 
cetri,  where  much  of  his  literary  work  was 
done,  Florence  being  no  more  kind  to  him 
than  she  was,  in  the  olden  times,  to  the  rest 
of  her  literary  sons. 

The  Misses  Horner  tell  a  pretty  story  of 
a  flying  visit  made  by  Tasso  once  to  the 
architect  Bernardo  Buontalenti.  The  poet, 
living  at  Ferrara,  had  heard  of  the  produc- 
tion on  the  Florentine  stage  of  his  pastoral 
oiAtninta,  and  that  the  success  which  it  had 
met  here  was  due,  in  a  great  measure,  to  the 
scenery  painted  for  the  occasion  by  Buonta- 
lenti. Elaborate  settings  have  saved  many 
a  doubtful  play  since  those  days,  a  fact 
which  dramatists  are  slow  to  recognize ;  but 
Tasso,  nobler  than  some  of  the  men  who 
have  come  after  him,  rode  all  the  way  to 
Florence  to  thank  the  artist,  whom  he  em- 
braced and  kissed  upon  the  forehead ;  and 
he  then  left  as  suddenly  and  as  unexpect- 
edly as  he  had  arrived.  When  playwrights 
embrace  scene-painters  in  our  day  we  can 


PALAZZO     DELLA    SIGNORIA,    WITH    THE 
TOWER   OF  THE  VACCA 


43 

hail  the  dramatic  millennium  as  having  come 
again ! 

Buontalenti's  house  still  stands  on  the 
corner  of  the  Via  Maggio — No.  37 — and  the 
little  Via  Marsili,  on  the  left-hand  side  as 
one  passes  along  the  latter  street  from  the 
Ponte  S.  Trinita  towards  the  Piazza  S.  Fe- 
licita.  But  if  the  frescos  of  Poccetti,  of 
which  the  guide-books  speak,  were  on  the 
outer  walls  of  the  building,  they  have  been 
stuccoed  and  kalsomined  out  of  all  existence 
by  later  owners. 

Montaigne  visited  Florence  in  1580,  stay- 
ing at  the  Angel  Inn,  where  the  charges 
were  seven  reals  a  day  for  man  and  horse — 
Florence  being  considered  the  dearest  city 
in  Italy.  A  real  is  a  Spanish  coin,  worth  at 
the  present  time  about  five  American  cents. 

At  a  festival  here,  on  St.  John's  Day,  he 
had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  all  the  women, 
old  and  young,  and  he  was  obliged  to  con- 
fess that  the  amount  of  beauty  at  Florence 
appeared  to  him  to  be  very  limited.  He  re- 
marked upon  a  Florentine  custom  of  cooling 
wine  by  putting  snow  in  the  glass,  which 


44 

liked  him  not ;  and  he  recorded  his  having 
bought  eleven  plays  and  some  other  pieces, 
and  the  fact  that  he  saw  here  a  copy  of  Boc- 
caccio's will,  with  a  discourse  on  the  Decam- 
eron, the  will  being  printed  verbatim  from 
the  original,  which  was  written  on  a  ragged 
bit  of  parchment. 

John  Evelyn  recorded  in  his  Diary  that 
he  arrived  in  Florence  on  the  22d  October, 
1644,  being  recommended  to  the  house  of 
Signor  Baritiere,  in  the  Piazza  Spirito  Santo, 
where  he  was  exceedingly  well  treated.  His 
life  here  was  that  of  the  ordinary  observant 
tourist  of  the  present  day. 

Thomas  Gray  and  Horace  Walpole  were 
together  in  Florence  for  some  fifteen  months 
in  1739-40,  and  were  the  guests  of  Horace 
Mann,  although  they  do  not  say  where. 
They  went  to  Rome,  and  probably  to  Venice, 
together,  but  no  particulars  of  these  visits 
are  to  be  found  in  Gray's  Letters,  edited 
by  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  or  in  the  published 
correspondence  of  Walpole,  except  that  Wal- 
pole wrote  once : — "  I  am  lodged  with  Mr. 
Mann,  the  best  of  creatures.     I  have  a  ter- 


45 

race  all  to  myself,  with  an  open  gallery  on 
the  Arno ;  and  on  either  hand  two  fair 
bridges.  The  air  is  so  serene  and  so  secure 
[this  was  in  July,  1740]  that  one  sleeps  with 
all  the  windows  and  doors  thrown  open  to 
the  river,  and  only  covered  with  a  slight 
gauze  to  keep  off  the  gnats." 

From  this  description  one  must  infer  that 
the  British  Embassy  in  those  days  was  on 
the  Lung'  Arno,  perhaps  between  the  Ponte 
Vecchio  and  the  Ponte  S.  Trinita;  and  it 
may  be  that  the  Hotel  of  Great  Britain  still 
preserves  its  name  and  still  marks  its  site. 

Walpole  had  "  already  become  fond  of 
Florence  to  a  degree ;  it's  infinitely  the  most 
agreeable  of  all  the  places  I  have  seen  since 
London,"  he  said.  He  seems  to  have  led 
rather  a  wild  life  here,  and  during  the  Carni- 
val, in  March,  1740,  he  wrote : — "  I  have  done 
nothing  but  step  out  of  my  domino  into  bed, 
and  out  of  bed  into  a  domino." 

Horace  Mann  spent  a  number  of  years  in 
Florence  as  the  representative  of  the  British 
Government,  and  all  students  of  the  city 
and  of  its  history  should  read  his  Letters  to 


_46_ 

Walpole,  edited  and  condensed  by  Dr.  Do- 
ran.  They  give  a  very  striking  and  a  very 
vivid  picture  of  Florentine  Women  and 
Men,  and  Manners,  and  Politics,  and  Social 
Customs,  between  1740  and  1786.  He  was 
greatly  disturbed  by  the  visits  of  the  Old 
and  the  Young  Pretender,  and  of  Theodore, 
King  of  Corsica.  He  was  familiar  with  all 
the  gossip  and  all  the  scandal  of  the  place ; 
and  some  of  his  epistles  read  as  if  they 
might  have  been  written  in  our  own  day. 
In  1742  he  gave  a  full  account  of  an  earth- 
quake, which  happened,  however,  at  Leg- 
horn, not  at  Florence ;  and  on  the  12th  Feb- 
ruary, 1743,  he  wrote: — "We  have  strange 
and  melancholy  doings  here.  Everybody  is 
ill  of  the  Influenza.  And  many  dye,  particu- 
larly among  the  poor  people !" 

Smollett  came  to  Florence  in  January, 
1765,  and  "  lodged  at  the  Widow  Vinini's, 
an  English  house  delightfully  situated  on 
the  bank  of  the  Arno."  His  landlady,  who 
was  a  native  of  England,  he  found  very 
obliging;  the  rooms  were  comfortable,  and 
the  entertainment  good  and  reasonable.    He 


47 

gave  no  account  of  his  personal  experiences 
here,  and  he  hinted  not  at  the  exact,  or  the 
approximate,  site  of  the  Widow  Vinini's  hos- 
telry. He  saw  a  large  number  of  fashionable 
persons  in  Florence,  he  spoke  of  its  "toler- 
able "  opera,  and  he  dwelt  at  length  upon 
the  habits  of  the  aristocrats  of  Florence  in 
entering  into  partnership  with  the  shop- 
keepers, even  selling  their  own  wine  by- 
retail.  And  he  thought  it  "pretty  ex- 
traordinary that  it  should  not  be  deemed 
disparagement  in  a  nobleman  to  sell  half  a 
pound  of  figs,  or  a  palm  of  ribbon  or  tape, 
or  to  take  money  for  a  flask  of  sour  wine, 
and  yet  be  counted  infamous  to  match  his 
daughter  to  the  family  of  a  person  who  has 
distinguished  himself  in  any  of  the  learned 
professions." 

Alfieri  lived  and  died  in  the  Palazzo  Ma- 
setti,  on  the  Lung'  Arno  Corsini,  No.  2, 
facing  the  river,  and  a  few  steps  west  of  the 
Ponte  S.  Trinita ;  the  tablet  informing  the 
passer-by  that  here  "  The  Prince  of  Tragedy 
wrote  for  the  glory  and  the  regeneration  of 
Italy."     The  younger  Dumas,  who  made  a 


48 

pious  pilgrimage  to  this  house  a  few  years 
ago,  described  Alfieri's  apartments  as  being 
upon  the  second  floor ;  and  Alfieri  said  in  his 
Memoirs  that  he  took  possession  of  them  in 
1793.  He  told  the  story  of  his  own  life  here 
— "  the  air,  the  view,  the  comfort,  exciting  his 
intellectual  faculties  to  the  utmost."  The 
Countess  of  Albany  was  his  constant  com- 
panion in  this  mansion  ;  and  he  died,  in  1803, 
with  his  hand  in  hers.  In  his  final  delirium 
he  repeated  one  hundred  verses  of  Hesiod, 
which  he  had  read  but  once,  and  that  in  his 
youth ;  and  he  went  out  of  the  world  in  the 
midst  of  his  work  and  in  complete  harness. 
Alfieri's  monument,  by  Canova,in  the  Church 
of  S.  Croce,  was  erected  in  18 10  by  the 
Countess  of  Albany,  who  herself  lies  in  the 
same  church,  under  a  beautiful  tomb  of  white 
marble.  She  survived  him  twenty-one  years. 
The  authorities  of  Florence  have  been  very 
liberal  in  their  tablets  to  their  illustrious  dead, 
and  unusually  generous  in  their  engraved  testi- 
monials to  the  illustrious  strangers  who  have 
lived  and  died  in  their  midst.  These  tab- 
lets are  in  all  quarters  of  the  town,  and  upon 


49 

buildings  of  all  sorts  and  conditions.  They 
are  almost  as  thick  as  were  the  autumnal 
leaves  which  strewed  the  brooks  in  Vallom- 
brosa  when  Milton  saw  it  in  1638,  and  gen- 
erally they  execute  their  purposes  with  a 
fair  show  of  truth.  They  are,  however,  often 
very  confusing  to  the  blind  pilgrim,  led  by 
blind  guide-books,  and  sometimes  they  force 
him  to  stagger  from  side  to  side  of  the  little 
thoroughfares,  with  his  head  in  the  air  and 
his  feet  in  the  mud,  which  is  sometimes  deep 
in  Florence.  He  cannot  afford  to  let  one  of 
them  escape  him,  and  while  he  is  searching 
in  vain  for  the  house  in  which  Byron  lodged 
or  Hawthorne  studied,  he  will  stumble,  per- 
haps, unexpectedly  and  much  to  his  satisfac- 
tion, upon  the  house  in  which  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing or  Mrs.  Trollope  died  ;  and  he  wilr  thank 
the  authorities  for  giving  him  so  much  help 
as  that,  although  he  will,  in  the  meantime, 
have  wasted  many  precious  minutes  in  try- 
ing to  decipher  the  name  of  some  Giovanni 
Somebody  of  whom  he  never  heard,  and  for 
whom  he  does  not  care. 

Byron  spent  but  a  day  in  Florence  on  his 


50 

first  visit,  in  1817.  He  went  to  the  two  gal- 
leries and  to  the  Medici  Chapel,  which  he  de- 
scribed "  as  fine  frippery  in  great  slabs  of 
various  expensive  stones,  to  commemorate 
fifty  rotten  and  forgotten  carcasses.  It  is 
unfinished  and  will  remain  so."  In  1821  he 
was  here  again  with  Samuel  Rogers,  but  only 
for  a  short  time,  and  he  has  left  no  footprints 
in  Florence  at  all. 

Shelley  was  in  Florence  for  a  few  months 
in  the  winter  of  1819-20.  Florentine  art  and 
literature  seem  to  have  impressed  him  less 
than  the  natural  beauties  of  the  surrounding 
country;  and  of  its  inhabitants,  native  and 
foreign,  he  saw  but  little,  living  here,  as  else- 
where, almost  entirely  within  himself. 

Leigh  Hunt  came  to  Florence  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1 823.  In  his  A  utobiography  he  wrote  : 
"  The  night  of  our  arrival  we  put  up  at  a 
hotel  in  a  very  public  street,  and  were  kept 
awake  by  songs  and  guitars.  .  .  .  From  the 
hotel  we  went  to  a  lodging  in  the  Street  of 
Beautiful  Women — Via  delle  Belle  Donne — 
a  name  which  it  is  a  sort  of  tune  to  pro- 
nounce.    We  there  heard  one  night  a  con- 


cert  in  the  street,  and,  looking  out,  saw- 
music-stands,  books,  etc.,  in  regular  order, 
and  amateurs  performing  as  in  a  room.  Op- 
posite our  lodgings  was  an  inscription  on  a 
house,  purporting  that  it  was  the  hospital  of 
the  Monks  of  Vallombrosa.  From  the  Via 
delle  Belle  Donne  we  went  to  live  in  the  Pi- 
azza S.  Croce,  in  the  corner  house  on  the  left 

side  of  it,  next  to  the  church  of  that  name 

We  lodged  in  the  house  of  a  Greek,  who 
came  from  the  Island  of  Andros,  and  was 
called  Dionysus;  a  name  which  has  existed 
there,  perhaps,  ever  since  the  god  who  bore  it. 
Our  host  was  a  proper  Bacchanalian,  always 
drunk,  and  he  spoke  faster  than  I  ever  heard. 
He  had  a  '  fair  Andrian  '  for  his  mother,  old 
and  ugly,  whose  name  was  Bella." 

The  Street  of  the  Beautiful  Women,  at 
present  writing,  sounds  better  than  it  looks 
or  smells.  It  is  close  to  the  Via  Tornabuoni, 
and  in  the  very  heart  of  the  town — a  short, 
dirty,  crooked,  narrow  lane,  too  narrow  to 
afford  more  than  half  a  sidewalk  through 
more  than  half  its  length,  and  it  is  given  over 
almost  entirely  to  stables  and  to  dealers  in 


52 

charcoal.  The  Beautiful  Women  who  fre- 
quent it  to-day,  and  who  are  to  its  manor 
born,  are  mainly  distinguished  for  some 
actual  or  affected  contortion  of  body,  or  for 
some  disfigurement  of  facial  feature  which  is 
their  chief  claim  upon  the  charity  for  which 
they  clamor.  The  inscription  upon  the 
Hospital  of  the  Monks  of  Vallombrosa  is 
still  to  be  seen,  faded  and  dim,  and  high  in 
the  air,  on  the  house  numbered  i  Via  delle 
Belle  Donne ;  and,  naturally,  the  Hunts  must 
have  lodged  at  No.  2  or  No.  4,  both  of  which 
face  it,  and  are  almost  the  only  habitable 
mansions  left  in  the  street;  families  of  re- 
spectable but  unintellectual  cart-horses  hav- 
ing now  their  residences  on  each  side  of 
them. 

The  Piazza  S.  Croce  house,  numbered  14 
to  17,  is  not  a  very  inviting  domicile.  It  is 
sombre,  four  stories  in  height,  and  around  the 
corner  from  nothing.  It  now  forms  a  por- 
tion of  an  Industrial  School  of  Decorative 
Art,  in  a  quiet  spot  very  far  from  the  crowd 
which  is  so  rarely  madding  in  Florence,  even 
in  the  liveliest  seasons  of  the  year. 


53 

A  little  later  Leigh  Hunt  went  to  Maiano, 
a  village  on  the  slope  of  the  Fiesolean  hills, 
where  he  found  the  manners  of  the  hamlet 
very  pleasant  and  cheerful ;  and  he  said  that 
the  greatest  comfort  he  experienced  in  Italy 
(next  to  writing  a  book)  was  living  in  that 
neighborhood,  and  thinking  of  Boccaccio  as 
he  went  about.  He  speaks  of  the  tradition 
that  Boccaccio's  father  had  a  house  at  Maia- 
no, and  that  the  poet  was  fond  of  the  place. 
Out  of  his  windows  Hunt  could  see  the  Villa 
Gherardo,  the  Decameron  Valley  of  Ladies,  a 
villa  belonging  to  the  family  of  Macchiavelli, 
and  Settignano,  where  Michael  Angelo  was 
born  ;  and  he  has  often  told  with  what  pleas- 
ure he  looked  back  upon  it  all  in  later  life. 
Here  he  had  the  society  of  Seymour  Kirkup, 
Landor,  and  Charles  Armitage  Brown.  And 
Hazlitt,  who  came  once  to  see  him  here,  de- 
scribed him  as  "  moulting."  "  My  last  day  in 
Italy,"  Hunt  wrote,  "was  jovial.  I  had  a 
proper  Bacchanalian  parting  with  Florence. 
A  stranger  and  I  cracked  a  bottle  together  in 
high  style.  He  ran  against  me  with  a  flask 
of  wine  in  his  hand,  and  divided  it  glorious- 


54 

\y  between  us.  My  white  waistcoat  was 
drenched  into  rose-color.  It  was  impossible 
to  be  angry  with  his  good-humored  face ;  so 
we  complimented  one  another  on  our  jovial- 
ity, and  we  parted  on  the  most  jovial  terms." 

In  1828  Longfellow  took  up  his  abode  in 
a  house  upon  the  Piazza  S.  Maria  Novella, 
close  to  the  Church  of  S.  Maria  Novella, 
where,  as  he  remembered,  Boccaccio  placed 
the  opening  scene  of  the  Decameron.  In 
November,  1868,  he  wrote  to  Lowell: — "We 
are  in  the  Hotel  Arno ;  we  are  sumptuously 
lodged  in  a  palace  on  the  Lung'  Arno,  with- 
in a  stone's-throw  of  the  Ponte  Vecchio.  My 
bedroom,  looking  over  the  river,  is  thirty- 
three  feet  by  thirty,  and  high  in  proportion. 
I  feel  as  if  I  were  sleeping  in  some  public 
square — that  of  the  Gran  Duca,  for  instance, 
with  David  and  the  Perseus  looking  at  me. 
I  was  there  this  morning  before  breakfast; 
so  that  I  fairly  woke  up  there,  and  rubbed 
my  eyes  and  wondered  if  I  were  awake  or 
dreaming." 

In  January,  1869,  Longfellow  wrote: — 
"  Florence  was  charming.     We  were   there 


LOGGIA   DEI    LANZI 


55 

only  three  weeks,  but  we  are  going  back 
again.  We  had  a  beautiful  apartment  close 
by  the  Ponte  Vecchio,  and  right  in  the  heart 
of  the  mediaeval  town.  Close  by,  too,  was 
the  little  church  of  S.  Stefano,  where  Boccac- 
cio read  his  comment  on  Dante ;  and  the 
Uffizi  and  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  and  Giotto's 
tower  and  S.  Giovanni.  It  was  delightful  to 
be  there." 

Benvenuto's  Perseus  stands  alone  in  the 
Loggia  dei  Lanzi  to-day ;  the  Young  David 
having  been  carried,  perhaps  for  safer  keep- 
ing, to  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  The 
Square  of  the  Gran  Duca  is  now  known  as 
the  Piazza  della  Signoria. 

The  Villa  Landor  stands  on  the  road  to 
Fiesole,  a  mile  or  so  beyond  the  Porta  Gallo 
and  on  the  Via  delle  Fontanelle.  The  prop- 
erty, bought  by  Landor  in  1829,  has  lately 
come  into  the  possession  of  Professor  Willard 
Fiske,  who  has  enlarged  and  almost  rebuilt 
the  house,  although  certain  of  Landor's  fa- 
vorite apartments,  notably  the  dining-room, 
the  drawing-room,  and  Landor's  bedroom, 
have   been    carefully   preserved.      Here   he 


56 

held  his  famous  Conversations,  imaginary  and 
real,  and  from  his  windows  he  enjoyed  that 
fair  Florentine  prospect  which  age  cannot 
wither  and  custom  cannot  stale.  Mr.  Fiske 
has  had  a  series  of  fine  photographs  made  of 
the  house  as  it  was  in  Landor's  day,  a  set  of 
which  he  has  presented  to  the  British  Museum. 
It  was  out  of  one  of  the  windows  of  this  din- 
ing-room, by-the-way,  that  Landor  once,  in 
a  fit  of  rash  impetuosity,  threw  his  cook;  a 
deed  he  always  regretted,  because,  as  he  ex- 
pressed it,  if  he  had  selected  the  other  win- 
dow, he  would  not  have  demolished  a  bed 
of  tulips  of  which  he  was  very  fond !  Lan- 
dor's guests  here  were  all  the  distinguished 
men  of  letters  who  came  to  Florence  in  hfo 
day;  and  in  the  same  hospitable  house  are 
entertained  now  all  the  men  and  women  of 
science,  letters,  and  the  arts  who  come  to 
Florence  from  all  parts  of  the  globe. 

Locker-Lampson,  in  My  Confidences,  wrote 
of  Landor  in  his  later  life : — "  I  made  Landor's 
acquaintance  at  the  Florentine  Villa.  He 
was  well  known  in  Florence  for  the  eccen- 
tricity of  his  opinions  and  the  turbulence  of 


57 

his  behavior.  He  lived  by  himself,  and  soli- 
tude may  have  rendered  him  savage.  His 
little  villa  was  poor  and  bare,  but  there  was 
enough  for  the  exigencies  of  contentment 
and  obscurity,  and  the  situation  was  beauti- 
ful. ...  I  found  him  reading  a  Waverley 
novel,  and  congratulated  him  on  having  so 
pleasant  a  companion  in  his  retirement." 

On  the  2d  of  April,  1845,  Dickens  wrote 
to  Forster : — "  I  went  up  to  the  convent  [at 
Fiesole],  which  is  on  a  height,  and  was  lean- 
ing over  a  dwarf  wall,  basking  in  the  noble 
view  over  a  vast  range  of  hill  and  valley, 
when  a  little  peasant  girl  came  up  and  began 
to  point  out  the  localities.  '  Ecco  la  villa 
Landora !'  was  one  of  the  first  half-dozen 
sentences  she  spoke.  My  heart  swelled,  as 
Landor's  would  have  done,  when  I  looked 
down  upon  it,  nestling  among  its  olive-trees 
and  vines.  ...  I  plucked  a  leaf  of  ivy  from 
the  convent-garden  as  I  looked ;  and  here  it 
is  for  Landor,  with  my  love." 

Landor  died,  in  1864,  in  the  Via  della 
Nunziatina,  now  Via  della  Chiesa — No  93 — 
a  poverty-stricken,  shabby  little  street,  which 


58 

was  never  genteel.  It  is  on  what  is  here 
called  "  the  other  side  of  the  river,"  and  it 
runs  from  nothing  to  nowhere.  It  is  peopled 
by  wheelwrights  and  venders  of  vegetables, 
as  poor  as  is  the  street  itself ;  it  has  no  pros- 
pect of  anything  that  is  not  commonplace, 
and  it  is  far  away  from  everything  that  Landor 
could  have  loved,  or  that  could  have  made 
life  to  him  worth  living.  No.  93  is  one  of 
the  few  respectable  residences  in  the  street. 
It  overlooks,  from  the  upper  windows,  and 
despite  the  high  wall,  the  gardens  of  S.  Maria 
Carmine,  which  are  not  particularly  cheerful ; 
and  it  has  no  tablet  but  the  tin  sign  of  the 
insurance  company  which  protects  it  from 
fire. 

Landor  lies  under  a  flat  white  marble 
stone  in  the  English  Cemetery  here,  on  the 
left  of,  and  not  very  far  from,  the  entrance. 
The  inscription  simply  bears  his  name  and 
records  the  fact  that  it  is  "  The  Last  Sad 
Tribute  of  his  Wife  and  Children." 

Fenimore  Cooper  passed  here  the  winter 
of  1837-38.  He  examined  twenty  or  thirty 
palaces  before  he  found  lodgings  to  suit  him. 


TOMB    OF   WALTER    SAVAGE   LANDOR 


59 

And  although  he  described  his  apartments  at 
length,  and  his  life  in  them,  he  gave  no  hint 
as  to  where  they  were.  "  In  the  spring  of 
1838,"  he  wrote,  "  we  left  our  palazzo,  within 
the  walls,  and  went  to  a  villa  called  St.  II- 
lario,  just  without  them."    But  that  is  all. 

Some  of  Cooper's  impressions  of  Florence 
are  worth  recording.  "  New  York,  which  is 
four  times  as  large  and  ten  times  as  rich, 
does  not  possess  a  tithe,  nay,  an  hundredth 
part,  of  its  attraction.  To  say  nothing  of 
taste  or  of  the  stores  of  ancient  art,  or  of 
the  notable  palaces  and  churches,  the  circle 
of  living  creatures  here  affords  greater  sources 
of  amusement  and  instruction  than  are  to  be 
found  in  all  the  five  great  American  towns 
put  together." 

The  five  great  American  towns  will,  un- 
questionably, grant  the  stores  of  ancient  art 
and  taste  to  the  Tuscan  capital,  but  they 
will  hardly  admit  the  overwhelming  charm 
of  her  circle  of  living  creatures. 

Charles  Lever  came  to  Florence  in  1847, 
and  he  lived,  for  several  years,  in  the  Villa  S. 
Leonardo,  on  the  Via  S.  Leonardo,  and  near 


6o 

the  old  church  of  S.  Leonardo,  beyond  the 
Porta  S.  Giorgio.  Here  he  wrote,  among 
other  novels,  The  Martins  of  Cro  Martin, 
Roland  Cashel,  and  The  D  odd  Family  Abroad. 

Mrs.  Jameson  made  many  visits  to  Flor- 
ence, and  spent,  at  different  times,  many 
months  here.  But  the  only  hint  she  gave 
as  to  her  address  is  in  a  letter  written  in 
1857  from  No.  1902  Via  Maggio.  She  went 
then,  and  earlier  and  later,  to  the  residence 
of  Mrs.  Trollope,  who,  a  devoted  whist- 
player,  was  bitterly  disappointed  at  finding 
that  Mrs.  Jameson  did  not  know  one  card 
from  another.  She  permitted  herself  to  be 
lionized,  which  in  her  very  heart  she  hated ; 
but  in  other  respects  her  days  here  were 
very  happily  and  very  usefully  passed. 

Just  at  the  top  of  the  Piazza  de'  Pitti,  as 
one  goes  from  the  Arno,  and  on  the  Piazza 
S.  Felicita — No.  9 — where  it  is  entered  by 
Via  Maggio,  is  the  Casa  Guidi,  in  which  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Browning  lived  for  many  years, 
and  where,  in  1861,  Mrs.  Browning  died.  It 
is  a  four-storied  edifice,  perfectly  plain  in  its 
exterior. 


6i 

The  tablet  on  the  Browning  house  bears 
the  following  inscription,  roughly  translat- 
ed :  "  Here  wrote  and  died  Elizabeth  Barrett 
Browning,  in  whose  womanly  heart  were  unit- 
ed profound  learning  and  poetic  genius  ;  and 
who  by  her  verse  wove  a  golden  wreath  be- 
tween Italy  and  England.  Florence,  in  grati- 
tude, placed  this  memorial  here  in  1861." 

In  1848  Mrs.  Browning  wrote: — "In  fact 
...  we  have  planted  ourselves  in  the  Guidi 
Palace,  in  the  favorite  suite  of  the  last  Count 
(his  arms  are  on  the  floor  of  my  bedroom). 
Though  we  have  six  beautiful  rooms  and  a 
kitchen,  three  of  them  quite  palace  rooms, 
and  opening  on  a  terrace,  and  though  such 
furniture  as  comes  by  slow  degrees  into 
them  is  antique  and  worthy  of  the  place,  we 
yet  shall  have  saved  money  by  the  end  of 
the  year.  ...  A  stone's-throw,  too,  it  is 
from  the  Pitti,  and  really  in  my  present 
mind  I  would  hardly  exchange  with  the 
Grand -Duke  himself.  By -the -bye,  as  to 
street,  we  have  no  spectators  in  windows, 
just  the  gray  wall  of  a  church  called  S.  Fe- 
lice, for  good  omen." 


62 


George  S.  Hillard,  in  his  Six  Months  in 
Italy,  spoke  of  the  pleasure  he  had  in  meet- 
ing the  Brownings  in  their  own  house  in 
Florence  in  the  winter  of  1847-48,  and  he 
said  that  a  happier  home  and  a  more  perfect 
union  than  theirs  it  is  not  easy  to  imagine. 
Browning's  conversation  he  found  like  the 
poetry  of  Chaucer,  or  like  Browning's  own 
poetry  simplified  and  made  transparent.  He 
spoke  of  the  marks  of  pain  already  stamped 
upon  Mrs.  Browning's  person  and  manner,  of 
her  slight  figure,  of  her  countenance  expres- 
sive of  genuine  sensibility,  and  of  "  her  trem- 
ulous voice  fluttering  over  her  words  like 
the  flame  of  a  dying  candle  over  the  wick." 

Here  on  the  9th  of  March,  1849,  their  son 
was  born,  and  here,  a  few  days  later,  Brown- 
ing heard  of  the  death  of  his  mother,  to 
whom  he  was  devotedly  attached. 

In  Florence  Mrs.  Browning  wrote  The 
Casa  Guidi  Windows  and  Aurora  Leigh. 
To  Mr.  Milsand,  Browning  wrote  from  this 
house  in  1858: — "My  wife  will  add  a  few 
lines  about  ourselves ;  she  is  suffering  a  lit- 
tle from  the  cold,  which  has  come  late,  not 


CASA    GUIDI    WINDOWS 


63 

very  severely  either,  but  enough  to  influence 
her  more  than  I  could  wish.  We  live  wholly 
alone  here ;  I  have  not  left  the  house  one 
evening  since  our  return.  I  am  writing — a 
first  step  towards  popularity  for  me — lyrics 
with  more  music  and  more  painting  than  be- 
fore, so  as  to  get  people  to  hear  and  see." 

"  Mrs.  Browning,"  said  Hawthorne,  "  met 
us  at  the  door  of  the  drawing-room,  and  greet- 
ed us  most  kindly  —  a  pale,  small  person, 
scarcely  embodied  at  all ;  at  any  rate,  only 
substantial  enough  to  put  forth  her  slender 
fingers  to  be  grasped,  and  to  speak  with  a 
shrill  yet  sweet  voice.  She  is  a  good  and 
kind  fairy,  however,  and  sweetly  disposed 
towards  the  human  race,  although  only  re- 
motely akin  to  it.  It  is  wonderful  to  see 
how  small  she  is,  how  pale  her  cheeks,  how 
bright  and  dark  her  eyes.  There  is  not 
such  another  figure  in  the  world ;  and  her 
black  ringlets  cluster  down  her  neck  and 
make  her  face  look  the  whiter  by  their  sable 
profusion." 

The  story  of  Mrs.  Browning's  death  in  this 
house  in  1861  has  been  given  in  the  Life  of 


64 

Robert  Browning.  It  is  one  of  sad  yet  ten- 
der and  even  cheerful  courage  and  sweet- 
ness, and  need  not  be  repeated  here. 

Mrs.  Browning  rests  on  the  left  of  the 
main  path  as  one  enters  the  gate  of  the 
English  Cemetery  here.  The  monument  is 
elaborate,  but  the  inscription  is  simple 
enough—"  E.  B.  B." 

When  Lowell  was  living  in  the  Casa  Guidi, 
or  under  what  circumstance,  or  who  were 
his  neighbors,  is  not  recorded  ;  but  he  wrote, 
in  1874,  from  the  "Albergo  del  Norte,  Fi- 
renze,"  of  the  deep  chord  touched  by  the 
sight  of  "  those  old  lodgings  in  the  Casa 
Guidi,  of  the  balcony  Mabel  used  to  play 
upon,  and  the  windows  we  used  to  look  out 
of,  so  long  ago." 

The  Hawthornes  came  to  Florence  in 
May,  1858.  In  his  Life  of  his  father  Mr. 
Julian  Hawthorne  writes : — "  The  Casa  Bella, 
a  floor  of  which  we  occupied  from  the  date 
of  our  arrival  until  the  first  of  August,  was  a 
fresh  and  bright  looking  edifice,  handsomely 
furnished  and  fitted,  built  round  a  court  full 
of  flowers,  trees,  and  turf.     A  terrace,  pro- 


05 


tected  from  the  sun  by  a  rustic  roof  built 
over  it,  extended  along  one  side  of  the  ex- 
terior, and  low  windows  or  glass  doors 
opened  upon  it.  The  house  was  all  light 
and  grace,  and  well  deserved  its  title  ;  a  room 
giving  upon  the  garden  was  used  by  Haw- 
thorne as  his  study  ;  and  there,  when  not 
wandering  about  the  genial,  broad  -  flagged 
streets,  or  in  the  galleries  and  churches  and 
public  gardens,  he  used  to  sit  and  sketch  out 
his  romance — the  English  romance,  I  think, 
not  the  Italian  one.  He  did  not  write  very 
much  as  yet,  however ;  the  weather  would 
have  made  it  difficult  to  stay  in-doors  in 
the  daytime,  even  had  the  other  attractions 
to  go  forth  not  been  so  alluring ;  and  in  the 
evenings  [Hiram]  Powers  or  some  other 
friend  was  apt  to  come  in,  or  he  visited 
Powers's  studio,  or  went  to  Casa  Guidi,  near 
by,  where  the  Brownings  were." 

Elsewhere  Mr.  Julian  Hawthorne  writes : — 
"  Such  friends  as  Powers  and  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Browning  afforded  all  that  nature  and  art 
could  not  supply ;  and  the  freedom  from  all 
present  labor  and  all  anxiety  for  the  mor- 
s 


66 

row  gave  an  inward  pleasantness  to  every 
moment.  I  believe  this  to  have  been  upon 
the  whole  the  happiest  period  of  Hawthorne's 
life." 

"  The  Casa  Bella,"  wrote  Hawthorne  him- 
self, "  is  a  palace  of  three  pianos  ;  ...  to  me 
has  been  assigned  the  pleasantest  room  for 
my  study,  and  when  I  like  I  can  overflow 
into  the  summer-house  or  an  arbor,  and  sit 
there  dreaming  of  a  story."  The  Casa  Bella 
is  now  numbered  124  Via  de'  Serragli.  It  is 
on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  street  as  one 
goes  towards  the  Porta  Romana,  and  a  few 
doors  below  the  Torrigiani  Gardens.  It  is 
still  a  fresh  and  bright  looking  edifice.  And 
the  summer-house,  preserved  intact,  is  still 
the  spot  in  which  one  would  choose,  above 
all  others,  to  sit  and  muse,  and  dream  of  a 
story. 

In  August  the  heat  of  Florence  drove  the 
Hawthornes  out  of  the  city ;  and  they  took 
the  Villa  Montaiito,  the  villa  on  a  hill  called 
Bello  Sguardo,  about  a  mile  beyond  the  Porta 
Romana.  "  Near  at  hand,"  says  the  son, 
"  across  the  gray  groves  of  olives,  was  the 


CASA  BELLA 


67 

tower  to  which  Mrs.  Browning  had  attached 
her  poem  of  Aurora  Leigh,  and  Galileo's 
Tower  was  also  visible  from  our  battlements. 
.  .  .  The  Villa  Montauto  was,  as  readers  of 
Hawthorne  know,  the  prototype  of  that  of 
Monte  Beni ;  though  the  latter  is  placed  in 
another  region."  It  was  in  this  mouldering 
stronghold  that  Hawthorne  wrote  the  first 
sketch  of  the  Marble  Faun, 

Hawthorne  has  put  on  record  that  he  saw 
Bryant  here,  at  the  Hotel  New  York,  in 
1858. 

As  Venice  is  the  resort  of  German  brides, 
so  is  Florence  the  paradise  of  spinsters  of 
all  ages  and  all  climes.  At  five  of  the  clock, 
of  almost  every  afternoon  of  the  year,  the 
rattle  of  teaspoons  is  heard  in  every  pen- 
sion in  the  town,  from  Paoli's  to  the  Villa 
Trollope ;  and  there  is  consumed  daily,  at 
that  hour,  enough  thin  bread-and-butter  to 
shingle  the  roof  of  Vieusseux's  Scientific  and 
Literary  Reading-Room,  in  the  Via  Torna- 
buoni. 

Mary  Ann  Evans,  better  known  to  the 
world  as  "  George  Eliot,"  when  she  first  came 


GS 


to  Florence  was  a  spinster — as  she  herself 
acknowledged  in  probating  the  will  of  Mr. 
Lewes  many  years  later  —  and  without  ques- 
tion she  was  the  greatest  of  all  the  spin- 
sters who  were  ever  cheered  in  Florence  by 
the  non-inebriating  cup. 

George  Eliot  and  Lewes  arrived  in  Flor- 
ence in  May,  i860.  "We  took  up  our  quar- 
ters in  the  Pension  Suisse,"  she  wrote  in  her 
Journal, "  and  on  the  first  evening  we  took 
the  most  agreeable  drive  to  be  had  round 
Florence,  the  drive  to  Fiesole."  This  prob- 
ably was  the  Hotel  de  Londres  et  Pension 
Suisse,  No.  13  Via  Tornabuoni. 

A  few  days  later  she  wrote  to  John  Black- 
wood : — "  We  are  at  the  quietest  hotel  in 
Florence,  having  sought  it  out  for  the  sake 
of  getting  clear  of  the  stream  of  English  and 
Americans." 

"  Dear  Florence  was  lovelier  than  ever  on 
this  second  view,"  wrote  George  Eliot,  in  her 
Journal,  May  5th,  i86i,"and  ill-health  was 
the  only  deduction  from  perfect  enjoyment. 
We  had  comfortable  quarters  on  the  Alber- 
go  della  Vittoria,  on  the  Arno ;  and  we  had 


the  best  news  from  England  about  the  suc- 
cess of  Silas  Marner.  .  .  .  We  arrived  in 
Florence  on  the  4th  May,  and  left  it  on  the 
7th  June — thirty-four  days  of  precious  time 
spent  there.  Will  it  be  all  in  vain  ?  Our 
morning  hours  were  spent  in  looking  at 
streets,  buildings,  and  pictures,  in  hunting 
up  old  books  at  shops  or  stalls,  or  in  reading 
at  the  Magliabecchiana  Library."  This  is  a 
portion  of  the  National  Library  in  the  Uffizi. 
There  is  a  tradition  in  Florence  that  she 
wrote  Romola  in  the  Villa  Trollope,  in  the 
Piazza  Indipendenza,  now  a  well-known  pen- 
sion;  and  her  rooms  are  still  pointed  out  to 
the  inmates,  and  still  bear  her  name.  The 
windows,  one  flight  up,  look  towards  the 
south ;  and  when  there  is  any  sun  in  Sunny 
Italy  it  shines  in  all  its  Italian  glory  upon 
them.  These  rooms  have  since  been  occu- 
pied by  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy — as  is  most  fit- 
ting— and  it  would  be  pleasant  to  think  of 
Romola  and  Tess  as  sitting  down  there  in 
harmony  together;  but  while  George  Eliot 
certainly  called  upon  the  Trollopes  in  this 
house,  neither  does  she   nor  Mr.  Trollope 


70 

hint  anywhere  as  to  her  having  been  their 
guest  there,  even  for  a  night.  And  Romola 
was  written  and  finished,  entirely  in  Lon- 
don, in  1861, 1862,  and  1863! 

Trollope  wrote,  in  What  I  Remember : — 
M  I  had  much  talk  with  George  Eliot  during 
the  time  —  very  short,  at  Florence  —  when 
she  was  maturing  her  Italian  novel  Romola." 
And  later  he  said:  —  "In  1869-70  George 
Eliot  and  Mr.  Lewes  visited  Italy  for  the 
fourth  time.  I  had  since  the  date  of  their 
former  visit  quitted  my  house  in  Florence, 
and  established  myself  in  a  villa  and  small 
podere  at  Ricorboli,  a  commune  outside  the 
Florentine  Porta  S.  Nicolo.  And  there  I 
had  the  great  pleasure  of  receiving  them 
under  my  roof.  .  .  .  Their  visit,  all  too  short 
a  one — less  than  a  week,  I  think." 

Thomas  Adolphus  Trollope  and  his  moth- 
er came  to  live  in  Florence  in  1843.  "  After 
some  little  time  and  trouble,"  the  son  wrote, 
"we  found  an  apartment  in  the  Palazzo 
Berti,  in  the  ominously  named  Via  dei  Mal- 
contenti.  Our  house  was  the  one  next  to 
the  east   end   of  the  Church   of  S.   Croce. 


GATEWAY    OF    THE    ENGLISH    CEMETERY 


7i 

Our  rooms  looked  on  to  a  large  garden  and 
were  pleasant  enough." 

The  church  stands  between  this  building 
and  the  house  which  was  occupied  by  Leigh 
Hunt  twenty  years  earlier. 

After  his  marriage  to  his  first  wife,  Theo- 
dosia  Garrow,  in  1848,  Trollope  moved  into 
the  mansion  which  still  bears  his  name,  and 
where  his  mother  died  in  1863,  and  his  wife 
two  years  later. 

The  Villa  Trollope  stands  on  the  corner 
of  the  great  Piazza  Indipendenza  and  the 
little  Via  Vincenzo  Salvagnoli,  once  the  Via 
del  Podere.  It  is  a  plain,  three-storied  edi- 
fice, bearing  a  tablet  stating  that  in  this 
house  on  the  15th  April,  1865,  died  Theo- 
dosia  Garrow  Trollope,  who  "  with  the  soul 
of  an  Italian  wrote,  in  English,  of  the  strug- 
gle and  triumph  of  Liberty." 

After  the  death  of  the  first  Mrs.  Trollope 
her  husband  sold  this  house  and  moved 
into  the  Villa  Emelia,  No.  41  Via  del  Ponte 
a  Ema  and  beyond  the  Porta  S.  Nicol6. 

At  the  elder  Mrs.  Trollope's  weekly  re- 
unions appeared  every  one  of  any  note  in 


72 

Florence,  and  many  of  no  note  whatever; 
but  all  were  most  kindly  and  most  hospita- 
bly received ;  the  lion-hunters  no  doubt,  as 
is  their  way,  often  driving  the  lions  them- 
selves out  into  the  jungle  of  their  own  do- 
mestic privacy. 

Two  low,  simple,  white  marble  stones, 
facing  each  other,  in  the  centre  of  the  Eng- 
lish Cemetery,  and  on  a  narrow  winding 
path  to  the  left  of  the  main  path,  as  one 
enters  the  grounds,  mark  the  graves  of 
Frances  and  Theodosia  Trollope.  Latin  in- 
scriptions record  their  virtues,  their  names, 
and  their  ages ;  and  they  lie  but  a  few  feet 
from  Landor,  and  almost  immediately  be- 
hind Mrs.  Browning.  Arthur  Hugh  Clough, 
Theodore  Parker,  and  James  Lorimer  Gra- 
ham, Jr.,  are  their  neighbors ;  and  within 
that  little  cemetery's  walls  are  contained  the 
most  sacred  and  the  most  realistic  of  all  the 
Literary  Landmarks  of  Florence  to-day. 


INDEX  OF  PERSONS 


Albany,  Countess  of, 

48. 
Alfieri,  Vittorio,  47-48. 
Amanetti,  Francesco  de\ 

13-H. 
Amerigo  Vespucci,  38-40. 

Baldelli,  Signor,  quot- 
ed, 17-18. 

Bartolommeo,  Fra,  25. 

Beatrice  Portinari,  6,  8, 
9-10. 

Benvenuto  Cellini,  2,  55. 

Boccaccio,   1,  10,   13-22, 

44,  53.  54,  55- 
Boccaccio,  quoted,  5,  16— 

17- 

Bondi,  Signor,  11. 

Brown,  Charles  Armi- 
tage,  53. 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Bar- 
rett, 60-64, 65-66, 67, 72. 

Browning,  Robert,  60-64, 
65-66. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen, 
67- 

Buontalenti,     Bernardo, 

42-43. 
Butler,  Samuel,  quoted, 
40. 


Byron,  Lord,  49-50. 

Calvi,  Cesare,  quoted, 

8-9. 
Canova,  34, 48. 
Clemens,  Samuel  L.,  15- 

16. 
Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  72. 
Cooper,     James      Feni- 

more,  58-59. 

Dante,  1-13. 
Dickens,  Charles,  57. 
Dumas,    Alexandre,   Jr., 
quoted,  47-48. 

"  Eliot,  George,"  67-70. 
Evans,  Mary  Anne,  67-70. 
Evelyn,  John,  44. 

FlSKE,  WlLLARD,  55-56. 

Galileo,  i,  26,  31-37, 

38. 
"  George  Eliot,"  67-70. 
Graham,  James  Lorimer, 

Jr.,  72. 
Gray,  Thomas,  44. 
Guicciardini,  Francesco, 

41-42. 


74 


Guido  Reni,  34. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  69. 

Hare,  Augustus  J.  C, 
quoted,  13-14. 

Hawthorne,  Julian,  quot- 
ed, 64-65,  65-66,  66-67. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel, 
64-67. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel, 
quoted,  29,  63. 

Hazlitt,  William,  53. 

Hillard,  George  S.,  quot- 
ed, 62. 

Horner,  Joanna,  quoted, 
36,  42. 

Horner,  Susan,  quoted, 
36,  42. 

Howells,  William  Dean, 
quoted,  1-2,  3,  14,  23. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  50-54,  71. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  quoted,  37. 

Jameson,  Anna,  60. 
Kirkup,  Seymour,  53. 

Landau,  Marcus,  quot- 
ed, 20. 

Landor,  Walter  Savage, 
53.  55-58,  72. 

Lever,  Charles,  59-60. 

Lewes,  George  Henry, 
68-70. 

Locker- Lam pson,  Fred- 
erick, quoted,  56-57. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wads- 
worth,  54-55. 

Lowell,  James  Russell, 
64. 


Macaulay,       Thomas 

Babington,     quoted, 

40. 
Macchiavelli,       Niccolo, 

40-41. 
Mann,  Horace,  44-46. 
Marcotti,  J.,  quoted,  4-5, 

io-n. 
**  Mark  Twain,"  15-16. 
Masson,  David,   quoted, 

38. 
Medici.de',  Ferdinand  II., 

26,  33. 
Medici,  de',  Lorenzo,  26- 

29. 
Michael  Angelo,  2,  29,  34. 
Milton,  John,  33,  35,  37- 

38,  49- 
Montaigne,  43-44. 

Norton,  Charles  Eli- 
ot, quoted,  5,  7. 

Parker,  Theodore,  72. 
Petrarch,  22. 
Pius  VII.,  quoted,  24-25. 
Poliziano,  quoted,  27. 
Powers,  Hiram,  65. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  50. 
Ross,  Henry,  15,  16,  21. 
Ross,  Janet,  1 5,  16,  20. 
Ruskin,  John,  quoted,  31. 

Savonarola,  i,  23-27, 

29-31. 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  50. 
Smollett,  Tobias,  46-47. 

Tasso,  42-43. 


75 


Trollope,  Frances  Mil- 
ton, 60,  70-72. 

Trollope,  Theodosia  Gar- 
row,  71-72. 

Trollope,  Thomas  Adol- 
phus,  70-72. 


Vespucci,  Amerigo,  38-  J     13 
40. 


Villari,  Pasquale,  quoted. 
27-28. 

Waldseemuller,  Mar- 
tin, quoted,  39. 
Walpole,  Horace,  44-45. 
Wilde,   Richard    Henry, 


INDEX   OF  PLACES 


ACCADEMIA      DELLE 

Belle  Arti,  55. 
Accademia  Filarmonica, 

41. 
Alberghettino,  29. 
Alighieri,  Villa,  11. 
Amerigo  Vespucci,  Lung' 

Arno,  39-40. 
Ameto,  Valley  of,  21. 
Angel  Inn,  43. 
Arcetri,  33-36,  42. 
Arno,  Hotel,  54. 

Bardi,  Via  DE/13,  22. 
Bargello,  12-13,23. 
Bella,  Casa,  64-66. 
Belle    Arti,    Accademia 

delle,  55. 
Belle  Donne,  Via  delle, 

50-52. 
Bello  Sguardo,  66-67. 
Bernardo,  S.,  Chapel  of, 

30- 
Berti,  Palazzo,  70. 
Boccaccio,  Via,  14. 
Bondi,  Villa,  10-n. 

Calzajoli,  Via,  3. 
Camerata,  Hill,  10-11. 
Camerata,  Villa,  10. 


Canigiana,  Palazzo,  22. 
Careggi,  Villa,  26,  27. 
Carraia,  Ponte  alia,  39. 
Casa 

Bella,  64-66. 

Dante,  2-4,  8. 

Galileo,  32-33. 

Guidi,  60-64,  65. 
Cathedral,  3,  11,  12. 
Cavour,  Via,  29. 
Cemetery,  English,  58, 64, 

72. 
Cepparello,  Palazzo,  9. 
Certaldo,  19,  20. 
Chiesa,  Via  della,  57-58. 
Churches — 

Bernardo,  S.,  30. 

Cathedral,  3,  11,  12. 

Croce,  S.,  36,  41, 48,  51, 
70-71. 

Duomo,  3,  11,  12. 

Felicita,  S.,  61. 

Giovanni,  S.,  55. 

Leonardo,  S.,  60. 

Lorenzo,  S.,  29. 

Marco,  S.,  23-25,  30. 

Maria  Carmine,  S.,  58. 

Maria  Novella,  S„  54. 

Martino,  S.,  2,  4-5. 

Medici  Chapel,  50. 


73 


Michele,  S.,  25. 

Misericordia,  13. 

Ognissanti,  39. 

Stefano,  S.,  13,  55. 
Cinquecento,    Sala    dei, 

29-30. 
Consiglio,  Hall,  29. 
Corsini,  Lung'  Arno,  47. 
Corso,  Via  del,  6-7,  8,  9. 
Crawford,  Villa,    10,    14, 

17-18. 
Croce,  S.,  Church,  36,  41, 

48,  51,  70-71. 
Croce,  S„  Piazza,  41,  51, 

52. 

Dante  Alighieri,  Via, 

3,8. 
Dante's  House,  2-4,  8. 
Dante's   Meadow,  10-11, 

23- 
Dante's  Stone,  11,  12. 
Duomo,  3,  11,  12. 
Duomo,  Piazza  del,  12. 

Emelia,  Villa,  71. 
English  Cemetery,  58, 64, 

72. 

Felicita,S.,Church,6i. 
Felicita,  S.,  Piazza,  43, 60. 
Fiesole,  10,  14,  55,  57,  68. 
Fontanella,  Via  della,  55. 
Fossi,  Via  dei,  39. 
Fosso,  Via  del,  41. 
Fountain  of  Neptune,  30. 

Galileo,  Casa,  32-33. 
Galileo's  Tower,  33-35, 
36,  41,  67. 


Galileo,  Villa,  35-36. 
Gallo,  S.,  Porta,  10,   14, 

Garofano,  11. 
Gherardo,  Villa,   15-18, 

20-22,  53. 
Giorgio,  S.,  Costa,  32-33. 
Giorgio,  S.,  Porta,  60. 
Giotto's  Tower,  55. 
Giovanni,  S.,  Church,  55. 
Giullari,  Via  del  Piano  di, 

35-36. 
Gran   Duca,   Piazza  del, 

30-31,  54-55. 
Great  Britain,  Hotel,  45. 
Guicciardini,  Via,  18-19, 

40-41,  41-42. 
Guidi,  Casa,  60-64, 65. 

Hospital    of    the 

Monks   of  Vallom- 

brosa,  51,  52. 
Hotels- 
Angel,  43. 

Arno,  54. 

Great  Britain,  45. 

Londres,  68. 

New  York,  67. 

Norte,  64. 

Suisse,  68. 

Victoria,  68. 

Illario,  S.,  Villa,  59. 
Indipendenza,  Piazza,  69, 
7i. 

Jacopo,  S.,  Borgo,  ig, 

Landor,  Villa,  55-57. 
Leonardo,  S.,  Church,  60. 


79 


Leonardo,  S.,  Via,  59-60. 
Leonardo,  S„  Villa,  59-60. 
Loggia  dei  Lanzi,  55. 
Londres,  H6tel  de,  68. 
Lorenzo,  S.,  Church,  29. 
Lung'  Arno,  45,  54. 
Lung'Arno  Amerigo 

Vespucci,  39-40. 
Lung'  Arno  Corsini,  47. 

Macerelli,  Via,  27. 
Maggio,  Via,  43,  60  bis. 
Magliabecchiana  Library, 

69. 
Maiano,  17,  53. 
Maiano,  Villeggiatura  di, 

20-21. 
Malcontenti,  Via  dei,  70. 
Manelli,  Palazzo,   13-14, 

22. 
Marco,  S.,  Convent,  23- 

25.  30. 

Margherita,  S.,  Piazzetta 
della,  9. 

Margherita,  S.,  Via,  8,  9. 

Maria  Carmine,  S.,  Con- 
vent, 58. 

Maria  Novella,S.,Church, 

54- 
Maria  Novella,  S.,  Piazza, 

54. 
Marsili,  Via,  43. 
Martino,   S.,  Church,  2, 

4-5- 
Martino,  S.,  Piazza,  3,  8. 
Martino,  S.,  Via,  2-3. 
Masetti,  Palazzo,  47-48. 
Meadow  of  Dante,  10-11, 

23. 
Medici  Chapel,  50. 


Medici,  Palazzo,  29. 
Michele,  S.,  Church,  25. 
Misericordia,  13. 
Montaiito,  Villa,  66-67. 
Morta,  Via  della,  13. 
Museum  of  Natural  His- 
tory, 37. 

Neptune,  Fountain  of, 

3o- 
New  York,  Hotel,  67. 
Nicolo,  S.,  Porta,  70, 

Norte,  Albergo  del,  64. 
Nunziatina,  Via  della,  57- 
58. 

Ognissanti,  Borgo,  39. 
Ognissanti,  Church,  39. 

Padua,  32. 
Pagliano,  Teatro,  41. 
Palaces — 

Berti,  70. 

Canigiana,  22. 

Cepparello,  9. 

Manelli,  13-14,  22. 

Masetti,  47-48. 

Medici,  29. 

Pitti,  61. 

Riccardi,  29. 

Salviati,  6-7. 

Uffizi,  13,  30,  55,  69. 

Vecchio,  29,  30,  55. 
Palmieri,  Villa,  10, 14, 17- 

18. 
Piazza — 

Croce,  S.,  41,  51,  52. 

Duomo,  12. 

Felicita,  S.,  43,  60. 


8o 


Gran  Duca,  30-31,  54- 

Indipendenza,  69,  71. 

Margherita,  S.,  9. 

Maria  Novella,  S.,  54. 

Martino,  S.,  3,  8. 

Pitti,  60. 

Rena,  9. 

Signoria,  30-31,  54-55. 

Spirito  Santo,  44. 

Zuavi,  39. 
Piazzola,  Via  della,  10. 
Pisa,  31. 

Pitti,  Palazzo,  61. 
Pitti,  Piazza,  60. 
Podere,  Via  del,  71. 
Poggio   Imperiale,  Viale 

di,  34- 
Ponte— 

Trinita,  S.,  43,  45,  47. 

Vecchio,  13,  40,  45,  54, 

Ponte    a   Ema,  Via  del, 

7i. 
Ponte  Rosso,  Barrier,  27. 
Porta— 

Gallo,  S.,  10,  14,  55. 

Giorgio,  S.,  60. 

Nicolo,  S.,  70,  71. 

Romana,  33-34,  35»  66 
bis. 
Porta  S.  Maria,  Via,  13. 
Proconsolo,  Via  del,  6-7, 

9- 

Rena,  Piazza  della,  9. 
Riccardi,  Palazzo,  29. 
Ricorboli,  70. 
Romana,  Porta,  33-34, 35, 
66  bis. 


Ross,  Villa,  15-18,  20-22, 
53. 

SALA    DEI    ClNQUECEN- 

TO,  29-30. 
Salviati,  Palazzo,  6-7. 
Santo,  Spirito,  Piazza,  44. 
Serragli,  Via  de',  66. 
Settignanese,  Via,  15. 
Settignano,  15,  53. 
Sguardo,  Bello,  66-67. 
Signoria,    Piazza     della, 

30-31,  54-55. 
Spirito  Santo,  Piazza,  44. 
Stefano,  S.,  Church,  13, 

„  55- 

Stinche,  Prison,  41. 

Suisse,  Pension,  68. 

Tavolini,  Via,  3. 
Teatro  Pagliano,  41. 
Tornabuoni,  Via,  51,  67, 

68. 
Torrigiani  Gardens,  66. 
Toscanella,  Via,  18-19. 
Tower  of  Galileo,  33-35, 

36,  41,  67. 
Trinita,  S.,  Ponte,  43,  45, 

47. 
Trollope,  Villa,  60, 69-70. 

71-72. 

Uffizi  Gallery,  12-13. 
Uffizi,  Palazzo,  13,  30,  55, 
69. 

Vecchio,  Palazzo,  29, 

30,  55- 
Vecchio,   Ponte,   13,  40, 

45»  54.  55- 


Si 


Via— 

Bardi,  13,  22. 
Belle  Donne,  50-52. 
Boccaccio,  14. 
Calzajoli,  3. 
Cavour,  29. 
Chiesa,  57-58. 
Corso,  6-7,  8,  9. 
Dante  Alighieri,  3,  8. 
Fontanelle,  55. 
Fossi,  39, 
Fosso,  41. 
Giullari,  Piano  di,  35- 

36. 
Guicciardini,  18-19,40- 

41,  41-42. 
Leonardo,  S.,  59-60. 
Macerelli,  27. 
Maggio,  43,  60  bis. 
Malcontenti,  70. 
Margherita,  S.,  8,  9. 
Marsili,  43. 
Martino,  S.,  23. 
Morta,  13. 
Nunziatina,  57-58. 
Piazzola,  10. 
Podere,  71. 
Ponte  a  Ema,  71. 
Porta  S.  Maria,  13. 
Proconsolo,  6-7,  9. 
Serragli,  66. 
Settignanese,  15. 
Tavolini,  3. 


Tornabuoni,  51,  67, 68. 
Toscanella,  18-19. 
Vincenzo    Salvagnoli, 

7i. 

Vittorio  Emanuele,  27. 
Victoria  Hotel,  68. 
Vieusseux's  Library,  67. 
Villa— 

Alighieri,  11. 

Bondi,  io-ii. 

Camerata,  10. 

Careggi,  26,  27. 

Crawford,   10,    14,   17- 
18. 

Emelia,  71. 

Galileo,  35-36. 

Gherardo,   15-18,  20- 
22,  53. 

Illario,  S.,  59. 

Landor,  55-57. 

Leonardo,  S.,  59-60. 

Montaiito,  66-67. 

Palmieri,  10,  14,  17-18. 

Ross,  15-18,  20-22,  53. 

Trollope,    60,    69  -  70, 
71-72. 
Vincenzo  Salvagnoli,  Via, 

7i. 
Vittorio  Emanuele,  Via, 
27. 

Zuavi,  Piazza    degli, 
39. 


THE  END 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


